Terry,
I suggest you retune your primary to get rid of that primary notch.
Tuning it lower will make the primary ring up continuously, and will
give longer sparks, though you wont see them till you have many cycles
running.
I cant imagine how that minor phase shift on the very first cycle
would matter. I think what matters more is that your primary current
is notching about a cycle later for the longer sparks. Have you tried
tuning the primary lower? This seems to lengthen the time between
notches in the primary current (until you get to 0 notches).
Just my thoughts.
Steve Ward
On 4/18/05, Tesla list <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Original poster: Terry Fritz <teslalist@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> Hi All,
>
> I now see what is causing the long and short periodic streamers. Here are
> scope captures of long (top) and short (bottom) streamers:
>
> http://hot-streamer.com/temp/LongAndShort.gif
>
> The top trace (yellow) is the top voltage picked up by the plain wave
> antenna. The primary current (blue) trace is picked up with a current
monitor.
>
> First, you can see that the secondary voltage is still ringing from the
> previous bang. If the BPS is too low, the previous bang voltage dies out
> and the effect does not occur. Only when the secondary is still ringing
> from the previous burst does the effect happen. I played with it, and this
> ringover from the previous burst needs to be there before the effect
> becomes apparent. So the high BPS rate is needed so the next burst will
> begin before the secondary rings down completely.
>
> Second, note that in the top waveform (long streamers), the primary current
> starts up about 90 degree out of phase with the top voltage. In the lower
> waveform (short streamers), they are in phase. This phase difference is
> especially apparent in the middle where the primary current turns off. In
> the top waveform case, there is a frequency double event. In the lower
> waveform, the frequency is almost 1/2.
>
> In all cases, these waveform types match the long and short streamers.
>
> When I vary the BPS rate, I seem to be going in and out of phase with the
> remaining secondary ring. When the primary current leads the top voltage
> by 90 degrees, the streamers are very long. When the top voltage and
> primary current are in phase, the streamers are very short.
>
> As power is increased, the effect gets lost since it has less relative
> effect with higher powers. Also, larger streamers seem to drain the
> secondary ring a bit faster so it is less likely to be there at the
next bang.
>
> Perhaps if a system could run at a very high BPS rate (maybe 10000 BPS!)
> and have enough control to set the start up phase angle, this effect could
> be taken advantage of at really high powers!
>
> Much to ponder...
>
> Cheers,
>
> Terry
>
>