RE: SSTC does 10 foot sparks

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

Original poster: "Steve Conner" <steve.conner-at-optosci-dot-com> 

 >Do you know that the power output of your Tesla coil
 >can be much greater than the power input?

Oh wow, then I can feed the output back to the input and get a TC that runs
for ever, and powers my house too ::)

Seriously though, John is talking about PEAK power. This is hard to measure
directly, but we can do it by "fitting" a PSpice simulation to give very
similar waveforms, voltages, and currents to what we observe experimentally,
and then asking PSpice to calculate the power for us.

It may not be super accurate, but I estimate it is there to within +/- 15%.
I have done the numbers for a coil design similar to Steve's ISSTC II, and
the peak output power (from H-bridge to primary) is around 250kW, which is
certainly more than the 4.8kW he is putting in. (The OLTC II had 130kW peak
output, but ran out of steam after about 60 microseconds.)

I also estimate that the energy efficiency (as John defined it) of an ISSTC
is considerably greater than 75%. I calculated the OLTC II to be 75% and the
ISSTC is probably somewhat more efficient again, I would say 85%.

The margin of error in these estimates is 10% (ie the ISSTC could be
anywhere between 75% and 95% efficient)

Note: The energy efficiency as described by John is the same as (average
power out/average power in)

Steve C.