[TCML] quench times again

[Barton B. Anderson]

Hi John, Chris, (hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!),

Something to keep in mind regarding the arc grounded case (and I shared 
with Chris already). True, the low impedance of the leader empties the 
stored energy in the secondary very quickly, but this will not change 
the transfer time. The energy transfer is function of the mutual 
inductance (which is not changed due to a ground strike). The gap will 
continue to conduct until all the energy is out and it will occur at the 
same time as it would with air streamers, except that it will quench at 
the next available primary notch depending when the strike to ground 
occurred.

At the strike to ground, the secondary amplitude will drop like a rock, 
but the remaining primary energy transfer will continue to keep the gap 
conducting until there is no more energy to do so. So, the transfer time 
is not affected, but the quench time is.

The ground strikes, primary strikes, etc.. occur (hopefully more ground 
strikes). If we are quenching in air say 2nd, 3rd, or 4th notch, we will 
likely be quenching at 1st notch on those events. So the system is 
quenching at different times. For those who have only air strikes, there 
will be more consistency. But for my little red coil, I'm hitting 
grounded objects all the time and a lot of ungrounded objects about as 
much as I'm throwing out air streamers. The arc impedance is changing 
all the time due to those external annoyances, so quench time is 
affected. This can be quite different from coiler to coiler just based 
on coil size, power, where, and how we run our coils.

I performed a 20 minute continuous run last weekend at 1000W. 
Considering everything that was hit and how often, I'm sure quench times 
were all over the place.

Take care,
Bart


FutureT at aol.com wrote:
>  
> In a message dated 11/22/2007 11:47:26 A.M. US Eastern Standard Time,  
> list at future-technologies.co.uk writes:
>
>   
>> I am  also trying to work out, that other than coupling and frequency which  
>> effect the tank "transfer speed" to secondary... can the secondary  itself 
>> become "easier to drive" to make the transfer quicker ?   this is why I 
>> thought that a lower inductance would take less time to  "charge" and the 
>> energy transfer would be quicker than a lower  inductance.... though this 
>> could just be down to a higher  frequency...
>>     
>
>
>   
>> cheers,
>> Chris
>>     
>
>
>
> Chris,   
>  
> I'll ignore the arc-to-ground case which is a special case.   Most
> folks like to see mostly air streamers I think.  The transfer  speed to the 
> secondary is not the problem preventing fast quenching.  The real  problem
> is streamer (actually leader) impedance.  If the streamers were  somehow
> of a lower impedance, this would drain the energy faster from the  secondary.
> Low impedance results in a heavier loading effect by the streamers.
> If the streamers were of low enough impedance, then there would be no 
> energy left to go back into the primary and prevent quenching.  The  effect
> of streamer loading reflects back through the system to affect the  quench
> time.  In the case of the arc-to-ground, the streamer impedance  becomes
> very low, and drains the energy quickly.  If the energy transfers  to the
> secondary quickly, but can't
> get out quickly via the streamers, then there's a bottle-neck, a  traffic
> jam.  It's as if many cars are streaming onto a highway from  various
> feeder roads, but up ahead a couple of lanes are shut down for  repair.
> Now the traffic backs up.  If the cars speed quickly to that  bottle-neck,
> it won't do them a lick of good.  They'll still have to slow down or  stop
> until the traffic ahead makes its way through the constriction.   Souping
> up the engines of the cars, or reducing the friction of the car's 
> powertrain, etc. won't help.  The only thing that will help is  to
> remove the constriction, to open the lanes of the highway which are
> closed for repair.  This opening of the lanes, would be analogous  to
> reducing the impedance of the streamers of the TC.  
>  
> John
>
>
>
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