RE: TC Spark Energy... THOR vs OLTC ][ + question for Terry

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Steve Conner" <steve.conner-at-optosci-dot-com> 

 >2. Bang size is 20 Joules max. Yours is 2.7 J, right?

No, it's about 7 or 8 J max. It's still not 20 |-(

 >3. Secondary + toroid capacitance is 74 pF

 >The only fair way to change something and get a better performance is
 >just to change the value of the toroid capacitance. Max voltage increase
 >is 18% but a tight coupling (0.6) is needed.

That's kind of what I was talking about. But the point I'm trying to make is
that voltage increase isn't necessarily meaningful. I.e. a bigger toroid
(with the same bang size) might produce a longer spark, even though it
produces a lower output voltage.

 >But now one question. You are opening the IGBTs after the first notch.
 >Have you ever tried to quench after it (2nd, 3th, etc. notch)? Did you
 >experience a derated performance?

I try to avoid 2nd and 3rd notch quenching because it increases the RMS
primary current quite a lot, and so I can run less power before overheating
things. However from the few experiments I have tried, it doesn't seem to
make much difference to spark output. The differences I did see were
probably due to the extra ON-time of the IGBT interacting with the DC
resonant charging circuit.

Steve C.