Remember the purpose of the safety gap is to limit the voltage. But, the main gaps breakdown voltage in comparison to the allowable voltage at which the transformer (or cap in some cases) will fail, is the real factor to analyze. If the main gap breakdown voltage (say a static gap) is only within 1kV of over-volting an NST, then the safety gap only has 1kV of room. If you go too far, it simply does nothing to protect the NST. If on the otherhand you have a 10kV margin due to the main gap setting, then the safety gap has quite a bit of room for adjustment. But it's hard to say how high a voltage is too high.
So in the end, your stuck just trying to get the safety gap as close as possible without it firing constantly. Thus, trial and error is the only way to truly set the gap and equations for breakdown are useless (fun, but useless). However, I do like them for the main gap setting. Equations do get you in the ballpark.
Take care, Bart ConorPerry@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
As I've increased power my safety gaps on the Terry filter have started firing, sometimes very often. I've seen the original schematic and several peoples builds, but never seen any distance shown for what the gaps should be. I'd guess that they'd change depending on the transformer voltage, but what gaps for the standard NST voltages? CP8071 _______________________________________________ Tesla mailing list Tesla@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.pupman.com/mailman/listinfo/tesla
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