>Same power to the load. One is fast and high current. The other is slow
>and 1/2 the current. Which one will give better sparks?
Well I believe the fast, high current one will but only up to an extent. The
reason being that streamer growth seems to occur on a timescale of about 100
to 200 microseconds. Hence, any pulse longer than about 200uS seems to just
make the streamer thicker and hotter, not longer. And likewise, any pulse
shorter than 100uS is wasteful of peak current (as you need higher current
to get the same bang energy)
............
Yup, with adjustments for DC bus voltage, burst length, and rep rate, you
can control almost everything you might want to. A lot of experimenting
around has been done already, and the 100 to 200 microsecond rule of thumb I
quoted is a result of that. Hopefully there will be lots more empirical
findings like this, and one day someone will do a proper test of an
empirical DRSSTC against an optimal one built according to Antonio's
formula.