Allen, a Tesla coil requires a very small duty cycle at the spark gap. Jim
is basically saying the contact break is too long a duration and does not
give enough time for the high voltage induced resonance to ring down in the
system. Technically, it does break the circuit, but not with the right duty
cycle.
David Thomson
On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 8:09 AM, Co60bishop <co60bishop@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> I am confused by Jim's comment. The distributor definitely does make and
> break high voltage. The center of the distributor cap is one high voltage
> connection and then tie the outer spark plug wire connections together for
> the second connection. You can use a 4, 6, or 8 cylinder distributor and
> experiment with how many spark plug connections you use depending on the
> RPM of the motor spinning the rotor if you like. The distributor is
> designed to make and break upwards of 30KV.
>
> Allen Bishop
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jim Lux <jimlux@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: Tesla Coil Mailing List <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Thu, Apr 17, 2014 4:21 am
> Subject: Re: [TCML] car distributor as rotary gap
>
>
> David Boyle wrote:
> I'm designing an srsg with an 7" phenolic disc and 4 tungsten points
> spun at 1800rpm by a half horse motor modified to be synchronous. Our
> transformer is 10Kv at 60ma. However a member of my team thinks that a
> rotary spark gap can be easily made from a distributor cap and rotor
> from a car. Is this possible?
>
> you can try.. but I'm not sure it will work very well. A distributor is
> designed more like a rotary switch: it doesn't carry any high voltage
> except when the rotor is near one of the electrodes. That is, it
> doesn't make and break the HV.
>
> If you search the archives, I'll bet someone has tried it, though.
>
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