Original poster: "David Rieben" <drieben@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Hi all,
I have noticed a problem with the ASRSGs that I have built. I think
I may have already mentioned this a few years ago and IRC, it was
sort of a mystery then. The problem is that when I make a rotary
gap of the dual gap style (2 pairs of stationary electrodes placed
180 degrees apart along the periphery of the rotary disc so that
each time that it fires, the discharge goes through 2 rotary elec-
trodes instead of 1). Is that clear as mud? Anyway, when I try to
run my ASRSGs like that, it will not fire no matter how close the
rotary electrodes pass to the stationary electrodes or if it does
fire, it fires very erratically and ends up smoking something in
the control panel (I blew out a 1000 volt, 50 amp FWB rectifier
brick for the DC motor of my RSG last time)! In the past I was
able to rectify this issue by either going with a single rotary gap
or if I kept it double series, I had to use a motor with a double shaft
and keep both sets of stationary electrodes on the same side of the
motor. Does this make any sense? Also, I've noticed that SYNCHED
rotary gaps don't seem to have this problem with running double
rotary gaps 180 degrees apart. Can anyone tell what gives with this?
The only reason that I was thinking of using a double-seriesed ro-
tary gap is that I will be pushing up to 15 kVA with my latest
Tesla system and that will produce considerable heat at a single
contact point.
Also, I've changed secondary coil from a 12.5" x 44" long wound w/
900 turns of #17 magnet wire to a 12.75" x 48.5" long wound with
1260 turns of GREEN # 19 magnet wire. I think that #19 is still
large enough wire for this and I know the 1260 turns is a better
number of turns than 900, keeping in the 1000 to 1500 turn range.
That will be a better choice for secondary coil for a 15 kVA coil with
a 12x56 toroid. I have a 0.2 uFD primary capacitor and a 15 kVA,
14,400 volt PDT to power it. Actually, I have (2) 15 kVA PDTs so
so I could series the PDT outputs for nearly 30 kV!.Of course, I
would then have to series instead of parallel my (2) Hipotroncs 0.1
uFd, 50 kV pulse caps for a 0.05 uFD, 100 kV assembly instead of the
0.2 uFd, 50 kV configuration that I now have. My rotary electrodes are
(8) each 1/2" x 2 1/2" long tungsten carbide drillling blanks and my
stationary electrodes are (2) each 1/2" x 3" long tungsten carbide
drilling blanks mounted in 2 1/2" long, 1.25" brass square stock.
Actually it WAS (4) stationary electrodes but now is (2) due to
the problem that i mentioned above in the first paragraph :^) Any
comments are welcome.
David Rieben