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Re: Argon is out.
At 08:21 PM 9/12/98 -0600, you wrote:
>Original Poster: Terry Fritz <terryf-at-verinet-dot-com>
>
>Hi All,
> After about a week of experimenting with my argon gap I have concluded
>that argon is not a suitable gas for spark gaps. The gas is too easily
>ionized. It will become resistive at relatively low voltages and when it
>does fully fire it seems to have high losses. The spark output was
>consistently very poor. Firing is very erratic.
> This suggests that there are gasses that would be much better. The
>atmosphere that the spark gap operates in has a very significant effect on
>the gap's performance.
>
> Terry Fritz
>
snip
Terry,
Argon works great if you run it at the right pressure and geometry.
I am a Electrical Engineer at The Plasma Physics Division at the Naval
Research Lab in Washington D.C.
Try getting a good vacuum pump and pump out the (say 1/2" x 4" glass tube
with cylindrical electrodes on the end) and back fill with Argon (with the
pump running) to a pressure between 200 and 800 milli-Torr.
I did this as an experiment on a unrelated item and got a white/blue
typical Argon discharge with a tube impedance of 2.2 ohms. Voltage across
the tube was measured with a voltage divider and the current with a
Regowski Coil. Across the tube V = 100 V and I = 45 A. The pulse width
was 250 microseconds and the rep-rate was 1 Hz.
Also I can tell you that the recombination rate for argon at these
pressures is less than a microsecond for these parameters.
Hope this helps,
Dwight