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Registered Member #3414
Joined: Sun Nov 14 2010, 05:05PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4245
Another way is to use an air core transformer to superimpose an HV pulse onto a DC supply. The superimposed HV pulse fires the tube, and the DC component maintains it.
The DC component can be as large as you like and the HV pulse can be supplied from a flyback, iggy coil, anything you have lying around.
Yup, as with what's mentioned above; you can also capacitively couple an RF HV source to ignite these tubes, which is what I've done in the past. A low power SSTC can be turned on momentarily to excite the fill gas, and then the DC (or low frequency AC) sustains the arc.
Registered Member #8120
Joined: Thu Nov 15 2012, 06:06PM
Location: Moscow, Russia
Posts: 94
RateReducer wrote ... and on the primary you have a HV transformer e.g. a flyback, a HV capacitor and a spark gap...
Yeah, that's what i used to do too.
However, that is a solution that requires "exotic parts" - a flyback in your case, taser transformer in mine. I'd like to make an igniter from common parts. Also, it's bulky, manual control and not too reliable.
Ash Small wrote ... Another way is to use an air core transformer to superimpose an HV pulse onto a DC supply.
Hm? Clarifications please?
Sigurthr wrote ... A low power SSTC can be turned on momentarily to excite the fill gas, and then the DC (or low frequency AC) sustains the arc.
Does not seem to work with this lamp - i tried my whole collection of small tesla coils near it without any effect. Unlike a flash tube, which triggers even from being near to a radio antenna, this lamp does not seem that easy to ignite without direct stimulation.
Registered Member #3215
Joined: Sun Sept 19 2010, 08:42PM
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wouldn't a simple CCFL driver powered by a floating 12V (from a small secondary converter) with one end tied to lamp cathode and the other one to the reflector work?
Registered Member #8120
Joined: Thu Nov 15 2012, 06:06PM
Location: Moscow, Russia
Posts: 94
Sigurthr wrote ... That tube must have a mean fill pressure.
10-20 atm, as far as i know. It ain't called "super high pressure short arc lamp" for nothing.
Shrad wrote ... with one end tied to lamp cathode and the other one to the reflector work?
What reflector? If you mean the housing, then i doubt it, since it does not mind a tesla coil point blank. But i haven't actually tried it with a large electrode.
That sounds like the way you trigger xenon flash tubes, which often have dedicated electrodes on their surface and much lower pressures.
Registered Member #3215
Joined: Sun Sept 19 2010, 08:42PM
Location:
Posts: 780
that may also work with a surrounding plate
maybe with a RF oscillator which wavelength would match the electrode spacing, or with a UV light and field? there are many methods for favoring a discharge
Registered Member #3414
Joined: Sun Nov 14 2010, 05:05PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4245
Something like this.
You may be able to use low frequency AC, but I'm not sure if it will require re-igniting after every zero crossing as I'm not familiar with these tubes.
The capacitor is to stop the HV getting back into the DC supply. You may require a choke as well, on the DC side of the capacitor.
Somewhere around 10 to 200nF is usually ok.
My air core transformer was ten turns of welding cable around a scrubbed effervescent vitamin C tube, as these are made from polypropylene, which is the best stuff to use, apparently. I think I used copper cored ignition lead for the primary, ten turns again, for 1:1 ratio, but you can vary the ratio if required, etc.
More turns may give better coupling, if you can fit them on.
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Chaining transformers for a high voltage pulse?
