Re: Safety gap issues

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: "JT Bowles" <jasotb@xxxxxxxxxxx>

WOW, NICE. According to what you just said, my coil produces an 
absolute maximum of 533KV (if  my toroid were perfectly smooth) Half 
a million volts seems too much for a mere 14" discharge average. But, 
if you say half a million, i'll go with that!  :P


> From: "Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
> To: tesla@xxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: Safety gap issues
> Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 12:51:45 -0700
>
> Original poster: Terry Fritz <vardin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> Hi Jim,
>
> At 08:16 AM 11/26/2005, you wrote:
> ...........
> > If you want to "estimate" the voltage on your tesla coil from it's 
> > physical design, your best bet is to measure the radius of 
> > curvature.  The voltage won't be much higher than the radius of 
> > curvature in cm times 30 kV/cm, and will likely be lower (since 
> > that's the max voltage for smooth sphere with nothing around it).
>
> I have noticed that the "breakout voltage" does tend to correspond 
> to the radius of curvature and all.  However, the top voltage can 
> then go substantially beyond that.  If there is a lot of power 
> behind the arcs.
> Then the "breakout loading" is just not enough to hold the voltage down.
> So it does not act like say a hard Zener diode, but rather a Zener 
> with a big resistor in series with it.
>
> Cheers,
>
>         Terry