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Re: Dual RSG idea WAS: Re: Twin coil idea



all,

There's been a lot of postings about twin coils, dual gaps, etc.  I'd
just like to clarify a few points.

1)  typical twin coils use one power supply, one gap system, and
one capacitor with either a series or parallel primary.  By using this
set up, and winding the coils in the correct direction, a perfect out
of phase RF situation will occur which causes the sparks to attract
each other.

2)  in a twin coil system that uses two power supplies, and two
separate gap systems, and caps, etc., the RF will not automatically
be out of phase.  I beleive that any attempts to phase the system
using adjustable rotary timings, etc will fail to give proper RF phasing.
There's just too much jitter in any mechanical system to reliably
phase up the RF (the firing timing of rotaries is simply not precise
nor repeatable).  Even if the discs are one one shaft, with adjustable
electrodes, etc, the system will not remain in RF phase.  However,
the system will drift in and out of phase, somewhat  randomly.  The
big question therefore is; will the phase be suitably out of phase
enough of the time to let the sparks attract *enough* of the time.

3)  I should mention that there are two phases to consider; the input
power phase, i.e. where the gap fires along the ac cycle, and the RF
phase which determines whether the sparks attract.  Adjusting the
rotary timing to make the gaps fire at the same time 60Hz AC-wise
is no problem.  But trying to achieve a steady out of phase condition
RF wise, is a problem since the frequency might be 3000 times higher
or so (than the 60Hz) and therefore needs to be 3000 times more
precise, timing-wise.  No mechanical gap system which depends on
a spark gap breakdown, can achieve this degree of precision.  It might
be possible with some sort of electronically triggered system. 
When Lou matched up the phase of his gaps in 
his dual driver magnifier, the sparks were killed due to the random 
phase of the RF.  In order for the sparks to attract in a normal twin 
TC, the two secondaries must be out of phase (at least that's what
I've always heard).  My point is that RF phasing can't be done using
rotary timing adjustments.  Any system that uses separate rotaries,
(even 2 discs on one motor),  will have to depend on random RF
phasings to make the sparks attract....and random phasing might
not be good enough.  This is why I said in my original posting that
is would be an interesting project to try....but it might not work well.

Cheers,
John Freau