So the spark gap is directly parallel to the WFC, right?
All spark across the spark gap but no voltage in the WFC, is that what I'm seeing?
The hairpin circuit is not Stan's series tuned circuit unless of course Stan was using an hidden spark gap. This week using Matt's idea of a spark gap across the secondary we have established through testing that you can have a dead short across the choke outputs and still produce dielectricity which you can read on a meter. We have established that the dielectricity exists in 'nodes' in similar fashion to where voltage maxima exists on an antenna and there are standing waves of the voltage maxima in the circuit.
We have established that you can get a 1000v across the cell and use the frequency and spark gap width to increase or decrease the capacitance across the WFC. This happens while keeping current at a minimum and you must have air gaps in the core or it will not work.
All of this is without the chokes operating at their self resonant frequency and not operating at their highest voltage amplitude. It shows people what happens when you use a spark gap as a matching device so that the stored voltage of the secondary and two chokes begin to form a resonant relationship that is not entirely dependent on the primary drive frequency.
Also discovered this week is the fact that the primary can overheat the core. Last night I had the system on for about an hour and because my primary is only 4 ohms it overheated the laminated core which is now unusable. The primary needs to be higher impedance but then you lose voltage on the secondary because of the turns ratio.
Another important fact is upping the voltage into the primary of the VIC. You cannot use another transformer between the output of the TIP3055 and the primary of the VIC. The reason being, too many core losses in the step up, too much voltage and current exchanges in the core and most importantly the frequency such a transformer runs at does not match the frequency at which you can get the spark gap to induce a 1000v across the cell.
So using a TV flyback transformer between the 12v output of the TIP3055 and the primary does not work. I tested this and I'll make a short video tonight about this. But basically what happens is the flyback takes 2 amps to run at its most efficient frequency and produces 20kv, when you input the high voltage into the VIC primary there isn't enough current to create flux and what happens is the normal voltage to current exchange which we see in all transformers when we connect step up transformers onto more step up transformers, you end up with less voltage than the TIP3055 originally outputted and the rest is absorbed into core losses.
To make the VIC work we must rectify mains voltage usually via a Variac as the power source and then a full bridge rectifier into the TIP3055 without any smoothing caps which is what Stan does. Then you have a variable high current high voltage supply into the VIC which when you increase the voltage also has enough available current to compensate for core losses so the voltage amplitude will not suffer. This is what I intend to do eventually but at the minute i'm only using low voltage so we can measure the system better.
We have also established this week that the VIC is dirty, throwing out spurious emmissions all over my house, turning TV's on and off in other room's, lighting light bulbs with only one wire and sending multimeters barmy with electrostatic voltages floating around the room which is quite dangerous as Ronnie correctly pointed out, bad for your health and bad for electronic appliances that can overload from the voltage such as cell phones etc.
The spurious emmissions are bad enough with 12v into the VIC primary so imagine what 50 or 100 volts will do, remember there is RF mixed in with these waves too which is not healthy.
When I update my equipment and build a more accurate core i'm going to show what happens on the scope, drive the whole system with a better pulse generator and have some kind of variac into the TIP3055.
I think through the video's i've done on this thread and with a bit of help from Matt, have shown what can be done when the chokes are not operating at self resonance but the real money shot comes when we start pinging the chokes at their self resonant frequency where voltage amplitude is the highest, then see what the spark gap does.
