TSSP: List Archives

From: "Malcolm Watts"
Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 08:50:50 +1200
Subject: [TSSP] Magnifier Voltages

Hello All,
           I crave your indulgence to digress for a moment. Somewhere 
in the last couple of days I have read the suggestion that the bulk 
of a magnifier's voltage is developed in the resonator. On the face 
of it and without further data, that suggestion appears reasonable. 
But it was also suggested that this is the case based on the length 
of sparks that could be obtained from the wire leading to the 
magnifier's base vs sparklength from the top terminal. As we all 
know, it is highly questionable to judge output voltage for a TC 
system of any sort from sparklength, although there is undoubtably a 
dependence of sorts there. 
     This led me to ponder the following points:

- why is it that sparks leap and grow from the top terminal in a 
magnifier but merely appear to flashover to some object from the base 
lead (transmission line if you like)? (note - the flashover distance 
shows the voltage to be pretty substantial).

- What causes a spark to jump a gap of a foot or more without 
exhibiting the usual streamer vs breakrate growth phenomenon?

- Has a measurement been done in sshot mode to determine the arc 
distances from (a) the transmission line, and (b) the top and compare 
them to get some feel for the the voltage differences?

- In Richard Hull's #11-E, *I think but may be wrong* that the bulk 
of the inductance is in the secondary rather than the resonator 
(which also has some huge capacitance attached to it). What does 
modelling say about the relative voltages being developed across each 
coil?

    I have personal ideas about some of these points but I would be 
most interested to hear what the knowledgeable and scientific members 
of this project have to say about these things.

Regards all,
Malcolm




Maintainer Paul Nicholson, paul@abelian.demon.co.uk.