Hi Neal,I'm not sure how much air an air hockey table produces, but I suspect it's simply not enough to keep the single gap cool enough. What you describe is "exactly" what occurs when heat causes the electrodes to contaminate the gap with ions lowering the breakdown voltage. Sparks will start out great and very soon diminish as the electrodes heat up. Using a RQ pipe gap would certainly be better for a lower air flow due to the surface area with all the pipes.
The idea with the single gap is that the single gap will have lower losses "if" the temperature is not affected by the power through the gap. However, with a single gap, the electrode thermal dissipation has to be excellent which usually means high air velocity and volume. This is one of the reasons why the pressure gap should work well (beyond the pressure situation).
Take care, Bart neal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents worth, since I just tried this- Someone earlier mentioned that a single gap might be better than an RQ type, but that was not the case for me. I'm using the blower from an air hockey table for quenching. I temporarily replaced my multi-gap with a single gap, fixed in a large pvc reducer fitting (I think 3" to 1 1/2") and directed as much air as possible over the gap. Cranking it up to about 60% power, within seconds I watched the streamers get reduced to almost nothing. Shut it off, let it cool down, and the same thing happened. So, for myself, I'll stick with the RQ style. Neal.
_______________________________________________ Tesla mailing list Tesla@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.pupman.com/mailman/listinfo/tesla