Re: Q and water

["davep" <davep-at-xxxxxxxx> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-xxxxxxxxxx>)]

Tesla list wrote:
 
> Original poster: "Jim Lux" <jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net>
 
> Tesla list wrote:

> > do you know why the Q of the secondary drops so drastically (as some on
> > this list noted) when a damp cardboard or other material is stuck inside?

	Dirty water is a conductor.
	Water soaked into cardboard (esp cardboard made from recycled
	bits of Deity-Knows-What is more or less dirty.

> > It just struck me as pretty weird - after all, the moist cardboard doesn't
> > come in contact with the secondary wires, and it doesn't even conduct
> > very well.

	It condcucts a lot better than well dried cardboard.
	And the primary does not come in contact with the secondary,
	but it sure influences it.  (Simile occurs to me as i write this:
	a conductive core (water loaded sonotube) is a Shorted Turn,
	which will steal power (and get warm...).  Its not a Real Good short
	but it is a conductive path.
 
>>  And at those low <200 kHz frequencies there shouldn't be much
> > losses at all (?) as water molecules resonates at 2.5 GHz (?) which is
> > way  off from usual TC frequency.

> Turns out that the "resonance" of water isn't all that signficant in a
> microwave oven, whereas the plain old conductivity is.  What you've got in
> the damp cardboard case is a resistor (i.e. damp cardboard) coupled to the
> coil....

	Agreed...
	PURE water, is a dandy insulator.  Mostly, water is not
	pure. 

	best
	dwp