Original poster: Steve Conner <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
My question was
addressing what happens once the primary quenches (should be at
maximum energy in the secondary). I'm thinking that phase drifting
begins at this moment in time if not before.
Remember there is huge capacitive coupling between the two
resonators, so they can't be treated as independent even if the
bases aren't connected. I've got twin coils to work with just one
primary, and the "slave" secondary not connected in any way and just
driven via capacitive coupling between the toploads. I could get
breakout from either resonator alone, or both, by tuning the DRSSTC driver.
The one thing I couldn't do was get the streamers to connect, though
they were long enough. They didn't avoid each other, but just passed
by each other. That suggests that the capacitive coupling gives a 90
degree phase shift between the two resonators, and you need twin
primaries and/or the secondary bases connected together to allow the
desired 180 degree mode.
I was able to get my single primary system to run and give
connecting arcs by connecting the secondary bases together, but it
suffered badly from primary-secondary flashovers.
Note, there is also a 0 degree mode (what a vibration analyst would
call the "rolling mode") which is the one where the streamers seem
to actively avoid each other. This mode is suppressed if you only
connect the secondary bases to each other and not to ground, but
that carries the risk of flashovers. I keep meaning to try grounding
the secondary bases through a bank of power resistors, to keep the
voltage under control and damp the rolling mode without affecting
the wanted one.
Steve Conner