Hi Aron,
On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 4:53 PM, Aron Koscho<kc5uto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
That's interesting Steve, this seems to imply that the output voltage of a
coil is basically the voltage at which its top load breaks down, regardless
of streamer length.
Well, i think its more that the streamer length in this case is highly
sensitive to voltage. My personal explanation as for why its only ~11kV
more to grow 4 foot of spark is that theres probably about an 11kV drop
across 4 feet of spark in the steady state like this.
This would then make streamer length a function of
current and time, variables which you are controlling with the QCW setup.
Right. Some other observations are that 1) if i ramp too fast i can achieve
the same 56kV (or more, ive seen up to 66kV) and get shorter sparks, often
with forking, 2) if i ramp up and hold a constant supply voltage, the sparks
do not seem to grow much during the hold time. So you really need *some*
increase in voltage to keep growing the sparks, but apparently its not a
whole lot when you are dealing on this extended time scale.
I
have a 100kV vacuum capacitor divider laying around, if I can find the time
I'll repeat your experiment. Very cool results!
Excellent.
Steve
Aron
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