Re: 20 joules at 100 bps vs 4 joules at 500 bps - any difference?

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: "Malcolm Watts" <m.j.watts@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

Hi Gerry,

On 15 Jul 2005, at 12:34, Tesla list wrote:

> Original poster: "Gerry  Reynolds" <gerryreynolds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> To all,
>
> I believe two things combine to produce long sparks (in this context).
> First is streamer growth from a single bang and a larger bang energy
> produces a longer single bang streamer. Second is growth building from
> previous bangs resulting from appropriate BPS.  As bang energy goes up
> the first mechanism seems to be favored.  As BPS goes up, the second
> mechanism seems to be favored.   Since the power to the coil system is
> bang energy * BPS and many of us want to get the longest spark from a
> given power source, it would seem like a good experiment to keep the
> power constant and vary the different combinations to find the optimum
> point where decreases in bang energy from higher BPS is not
> compensated for by improvements in bang to bang steamer growth.  Has
> this experiment been performed???

I built that function in to a tabletop coil which was run off a SM
cap charger. You could set the power at some arbitrary level then
vary the gap to change the BPS/Ep ratio. Big bangs won hands down in
the length stakes.

Malcolm