Re: Safety gap issues

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: "Malcolm Watts" <m.j.watts@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

Hi Terry,

On 26 Nov 2005, at 12:51, Tesla list wrote:

> 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

I think that is a good approximation. In fact it appears to act like
a parametric capacitor with losses. Secondary Q doesn't drop all that
far with air streamers and there is some extension of the topload
going on with surrounding ionization.

Malcolm