TSG Construction

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "S & J Young by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <youngs-at-konnections-dot-net>

Gappers,

I went to Lowe's Hardware store yesterday looking for ideas for supports for
tungsten electrodes for a TSG.  I wanted something which would absorb,
conduct and dissipate heat and hold the tungsten rods (3/16 inch) firmly and
allow the gap spacing to be varied and didn't cost much.

I ended up with half inch copper male and female threaded pipe adapters.  I
drilled a hole 3/16th inch through the female adapter through which the rod
goes.  The male adapter screws down against the rod and holds it firmly and
adds more copper mass.  These are held vertically by a copper T coupling
bolted to the GPO3 base.  Thus the only tools needed were a drill and a
propane torch to solder the T to a piece of 1/2 inch pipe to the female
adapter.  With a bit of care, the electrodes line up well and it looks good
and it is cheap.

Has anyone used a piece of sheet metal with a hole in it (say 1-1.5 inches -
maybe a large washer) with the edge of the hole filed very sharp (like a
knife edge) as the trigger electrode?  This is placed perpendicular to the
main gap electrodes so that the main arc goes through the center of the
trigger electrode hole.  Supposedly Maxwell Corp discovered the sharp edge
greatly increases the field intensity and causes multiple channel arcs in
the main channel, lowering the gap resistance and thus the losses.  Seems
worth a try.

Terry I noticed you did a variant of this with a wire loop as a trigger
electrode.  How does that work as compared to the typical setup with the
trigger electrode being similar to the main electrodes but perpendicular to
them?

--Steve