Re: Safety gap issues

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: Terry Fritz <vardin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Hi Jim,

At 08:16 AM 11/26/2005, you wrote:
...........
> If you want to "estimate" the voltage on your tesla coil from it's 
> physical design, your best bet is to measure the radius of 
> curvature.  The voltage won't be much higher than the radius of 
> curvature in cm times 30 kV/cm, and will likely be lower (since 
> that's the max voltage for smooth sphere with nothing around it).

I have noticed that the "breakout voltage" does tend to correspond to 
the radius of curvature and all.  However, the top voltage can then 
go substantially beyond that.  If there is a lot of power behind the 
arcs.  Then the "breakout loading" is just not enough to hold the 
voltage down.  So it does not act like say a hard Zener diode, but 
rather a Zener with a big resistor in series with it.

Cheers,

        Terry