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Re: Observations - Gaps and Arcs (fwd)





---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 07 Jul 1998 08:39:56 PDT
From: Bill the arcstarter <arcstarter-at-hotmail-dot-com>
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com, terryf-at-verinet-dot-com
Subject: Re: Observations - Gaps and Arcs

Terry Fritz wrote:

>        The quenching of the new gap was terrible!  The old gap 
>almost always quenched at the first zero current crossing.  The new 
>gap often went through 5 nodes before it quenched (actually the 
>system just ran down). This strongly suggests that many very small 
>gaps are much better than a few larger ones.  I think gaps less than 
>5 mil will clog up so there is a limit how small the gaps can be.  A 
>picture of the old gap is in the report at:

My employer made electrosurgery equipment back in the 40's (which used a 
static gap).  I've dug through the old log books and discovered that 
much research was performed pertaining to the number and size of the 
spark gaps.

One final design contained a series of 8 tungsten - tungsten gaps, 3/8 
inch diameter, set for (I think) 0.012 inch each.  A clever mechanical 
device would reset the spacings of each gap once the machine was turned 
on - thus compensating for erosion.

I've also discovered that the Miller part numbers (posted in the recent 
tesla resource list from R. Hull) for the tungsten TIG contact points, 
heat sinks, and ceramic base are still valid and stocked at most 
locations. :)  They also want to charge the ludicrous price of 98.89 for 
the p/n 096761 HF/HV 10KV 0.002 uf capacitor!

For what it's worth...
-Bill Pollack (arcstarter)


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