Why bother with MOT voltage doublers?

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

Original poster: "Paul Arrowsmith by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <p_t_arrowsmith-at-hotmail-dot-com>

I have been using two MOT's and a diode clamp circuit as per in microwave 
ovens, an arrangement used by many coilers on this list. This of course is 
not a true voltage doubler but but does render 12KV peak pulsed DC or 
another way of looking at it AC with the one of the sine wave peaks at 0 
Volts. It was an improvement on just 2 MOT's with the secondarys in series.
Been using it to power a small magnifier with a .056uF in the primary tank 
and a static series gap.
Have since tried using a 5KV RMS (only 7KV peak) transformer with no diode 
clamp circuit which delivers a significantly stronger and longer spark than 
the 12 KV pulsed DC power supply. The 12KV pulsed DC needed 3 gaps of wider 
spacing while the 5KV AC preferred two gaps of narrow spacing.
Using 4 MOT's with series secondarys giving about 8.8KV RMS AC outpreforms 
the 12KV DC by about 100%. In theory I thought this should give  similar 
results to 12KV DC.
Considering I can buy old uW ovens a the local tip here in Australia for $10 
Aus each why bother with the doubler circuit?
Is the voltage dropping under load? or does it not like magnifiers?
Or have I missed something like not putting a large reserve cap across the 
output?
Any thoughts,
Paul A.


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