Re: [TCML] Breakout Point

["David Rieben" <drieben@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Phillip,  

> From my personal experience, it seems that a 
breakout point does seem to shorten the maxi-
mum possible spark length, due to the charge
of the topload being "drained" before it has a 
chance to fully build up and self start the cas-
cading breakdown. Of course the amount of 
available power, primary capacitor size, break
rate, ect. also play a big part in this. I've found 
that a breakout point that just barely breaks the
surface of the torid is better at just initating break-
out without neccessarily excessively draining the 
topload charge than one that really sticks way out
from the topload surface. Of course the obvious
advantage of a breakout point is that you can some-
what "aim" the streamers instead of them hitting
everything randomly within the striking range radius 
of the operating coil.

David Rieben


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Phillip Slawinski" <pslawinski@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "Tesla Coil Mailing List" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, July 05, 2008 11:30 PM
Subject: [TCML] Breakout Point


> Does having a breakout point reduce your maximum streamer length?  I
> increased the size of my second toroid today and I'm getting 56" ground
> strikes, but I'm wondering if having a breakout point limits my streamer
> length any.
> _______________________________________________
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