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Re: A figure of merit

Hi,

Rating the "quality" of our coils compared to other coils is sort of like
rating the quailty of our loved ones compared to other people's loved ones.
 Beauty is simply in the eye of the beholder and we love "ours" more ;-))

My little LTR coil is really neat to me because I can easily run it where I
want and it works just the way I spent two months designing it to work.
It's beautiful to me but next to a 5kW pig system, the audence would not
see what I do...

Cheers,

	Terry



At 08:28 PM 04/26/2000 -0700, you wrote:
>
>
>> Original Poster: "Kennan C Herrick" <kcha1-at-juno-dot-com>
>
>Hi Kennan, comments below
>
>>
>> A while back Gary Johnson asked for reports on solid-state spark length;
>> and I responded with a proposal for a figure of merit or "quality"
>> measure for Tesla coils: spark length to a grounded point per primary
>> volt--for all builders, solid state and "spark".  I proposed millimeters
>> per volt just to make the number less depressing (25.4 mm are in each and
>> every inch!).
>>
>> But there's been a silence.  So I repeat it.  How about it, everyone?
>> Any interest?
>
>    I'm not interested--simply because I don't think length is
>all-important.  For example--some coils with higher break rates achieve
>shorter spark lengths, but the sparks are, by compensation, thick and
>powerful.  It really depends upon what you like, or rather what you are
>aiming for.  For example, anyone interested in voice modulation, etc. or the
>qualities of a CW coil wouldn't be interested in length--CW by definition has
>a different "quality index" than disruptive coils, since the peak power is
>less, but the average power is probably greater.
>    Sure, it might help when surfing someone's web page to see that their
>quality index was 3.65--but it smacks a little bit of, ahem. . .  self
>promotion.  I see it this way--when one is posting the characteristics of
>ones coil, it is always best to talk about the setup, i.e. what's unusual
>about it, what the operating conditions are, etc.  Then other coilers can
>evaluate for themselves--and tell you what they would do differently.
>    Unless you were to devise this for your own use--that makes sense.  It's
>nice to have mathematical means to evaluate performance.  But still it
>doesn't mean anything unless you've seen someone elses number-- hmmm...
>problems, problems, problems. . . I'll be interested to see how you figure
>some of them out.
>
>    --Mike
>
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