Hi Phillip,
Thanks for your thoughts on this.
I think a thermocouple would be better suited than an optical sensor,
because when using a static gap, there are surprisingly low frequency
variations in power. This is evident if you've ever viewed the mains
current on an analog meter movement. I think thermal equilibrium would be
achieved in a few tens of seconds, and this would smooth out the
variations
due to the static gap chaos.
I worry about the accuracy of monitoring the input power. When pushing
140V
into the NST, I'd be concerned with core saturation giving misleading
results. Does a Kill-a-watt meter not register saturation? Doesn't
matter
though - I have a thermocouple meter and I don't have a Kill-a-watt meter!
With the bulbs, all the power going to the bulb is real processed power.
Regards, Gary Lau
MA, USA
On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 9:08 PM, Phillip Slawinski
<pslawinski@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:
On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 18:40, Gary Lau <glau1024@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> However, if you replace the primary with the dummy load, one can
> quickly
> change the cap size and nothing else, and gauge the amount of power
> processed by the brightness of the lamps. For a more quantitative
result,
> you can mount a thermocouple on the lamp and see with what capacitor
> size
> causes the lamps to get the hottest. I believe that this would give a
very
> accurate determination of the optimum capacitor size. I'll have to
> resurrect my coil and try this!
>
Gary,
I think a photo sensor of some type would be better suited to this. The
thermocouple would work, but it will not be able to react to changes very
quickly, like adjusting the voltage on the variac.
This makes me think, do we even care about what the bulbs are doing? Why
not
just measure the actual power coming from the wall? The power coming from
the wall is proportional to the power going out of the NST. Any increase
on
the output side will show up on the input side. The Kill-a-watt would be
perfect for this task, and provides those quantitative measurements you
seek.
-Phillip Slawinski
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