Re: Undamped oscillations

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: Ed Phillips <evp@xxxxxxxxxxx>

I don't believe that the
technology existed in Tesla's era to time spark gap firings with the
phase of a ringdown.

Gary Lau
MA, USA

What would be so hard about that?    If your coil is ringing down at
10kHz?   and you fired it a 1000 pps......It would easily be 
done.   I would assume the coil would be built suck that you get more 
than 20 cycles before the logrithmic decrement tookl it to 
zero.   All you would need is a very well controlled rotary gap 
motor.  heck....even up to 100kHz it could be done.   If you have an 
even number of sets of stationary gaps  hooked up on a ring....all 
paralleled..and an odd number of electrodes on the rotor,  you can 
get quite a multiplier compared to a simple rotary gap with just one 
set of stationary gaps.
Each set of stationary gaps would run cooller besides.   Imagine four 
sets of stationary gaps...and three rotary electrodes.   You'd get 
how many firings per rev?   12?   next imagine  8 sets of stationary 
electrodes and nine rotary electrodes.    I'll stop now....lol
Mike

Mike"

   You missed the point.  The issue is setting the firing time so 
that successive wave trains added IN PHASE.  That means that the 
firing time would have to be correct within perhaps a couple of 
percent of the period - say a microsecond for a 10 kHz coil (pretty 
low frequency).
Objective was not a train of damped waves but a more or less constant 
wave "reinforced" with each sparking.

Ed