Re: How low can a spark gap go?

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: Vardan <vardan01@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Hi Greg,

At 05:00 PM 11/1/2006, you wrote:
> BIG "snip"
> >
> > The PIRANHA SISG based coil in the link above has a
> > Q of about 30
> > with Rp=0.25 (electronic gap).  If Rp = 3 (standard
> > spark gap) then
> > the Q is only 2.5 and the coil would not work well
> > at all.  It might
> > make a "little" spark...
> >
> Cool deal about the SISG spark gap modules. Very nice
> documentation. But what about quenching? Do these
> SISGs quench at all?

No.  So far, they don't quench at all!!  I tried a SCR circuit that 
would drop out the gate voltage after a timing, but it never worked 
at all...  Maybe there will be a quench circuit someday, but not today...

> Does quenching matter at super
> high Q?

I have not missed it.

I think Mark Dunn has used a low value gate discharge resistor to do 
the quench some.  I think he reported that it helped a little.

The PIRANHA has a big Cp and sort of low Lp so the Q is only about 30 
despite the low Rp of 0.25 (it is actually a bit less).  Quenching 
might help there, but ScanTesla does not report any giant advantage 
or anything.

So I am going with no quench and no sync triggering.  Just letting 
the thing do as it pleases, and it seems very happy ;-)))


Cheers,

        Terry



> Thx,
>
> Greg
>
>
>
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