Re: Series RSG (was material?)

[FutureT-at-aol-dot-com (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)]

In a message dated 9/15/00 7:29:20 PM Pacific Daylight Time, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com 
writes:

> >   http://hometown.aol-dot-com/futuret/page3.html                        
>  >                                                                     
>  > Or something with a greater number of series gaps?  Or do you       
>  > mean external static gaps in series with the rotary?                
>                                                                        
>                                                                        
>  No, I mean a multi-gap RSG. I couldn't get to your page, I found your 
>  homepage, but the server said it couldn't find page3.html. I saw some 
>  pics on page2.html though. Something like that. I've seen arangements 
>  set up so that on each gap presentation the arc has to jump many gaps.
>  I've heard of up to 8. I was thinking 4 would be easy. Is there a     
>  benefit to this? 

Travis,

OK I know what you mean.  I've tried 2 gaps, 4 gaps, 8 gaps, and
12 gaps in series, so all the gaps fire each time the rotory fires.
A series rotary.  I never saw any difference in spark length in any
case, so now I just use the normal 2 gaps.  Using more gaps,
the quenching is a little better, but the losses are a little higher,
so it's a tradeoff which is probably why I didn't see any difference.

Using an external gap may also help the quenching, but again,
the losses may be increased.  But there is much controversy in
all this.  Some folks have found much higher losses using 
the multiple gaps (either external static or built in series rotary),
whereas others have found the losses to remain about the same,
so it may depend somewhat on the coil parameters.  It seems
like not much work has really been done in this area to really
tell the complete story.

JOhn Freau