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Xenon arc lamp as a spark gap for TC

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LAN_403

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Sat Mar 03 2007, 03:48AM

Registered Member #561 Joined: Sat Mar 03 2007, 02:46AM
Location: Adelaide Australia
Posts: 230

how about using a xenonflash lamp or arc lamp as a spark gap in a tesla coil. i beleive that you could have a really low primary voltage (1-2kv) with tesla coil if you use a arc lamp. but i beleive this would only work at low powers (500watts max)
do you beleive would this work?

Myke

Sat Mar 03 2007, 03:54AM

Registered Member #540 Joined: Mon Feb 19 2007, 07:49PM
Location: MIT
Posts: 969

Why would you want to? The sparkgap is a lot cheaper.(not trying to sound insulting or anything)

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Sat Mar 03 2007, 03:59AM

Registered Member #561 Joined: Sat Mar 03 2007, 02:46AM
Location: Adelaide Australia
Posts: 230

i would be less noisy. i think

Myke

Sat Mar 03 2007, 06:06AM

Registered Member #540 Joined: Mon Feb 19 2007, 07:49PM
Location: MIT
Posts: 969

All TCs are noisey (not ones that are really small and solid state) but the noise level beingreduced is not worth the $ and the power limitation.

Terry Fritz

Sat Mar 03 2007, 07:29AM

Registered Member #393 Joined: Tue Apr 18 2006, 12:30AM
Location:
Posts: 297

Hi,

"It's the "POWER""... A normal TC blows off 1/3 to 1/2 of it's energy into a spark gap. Easily 100's of watts... The little Xenon tube will "fry"... I have 2kV "real" cold war day sparks gaps the will also burn up in TC use

They just can't stand the "heat"...

Cheers,

Terry

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Sun Mar 04 2007, 12:13AM

Registered Member #561 Joined: Sat Mar 03 2007, 02:46AM
Location: Adelaide Australia
Posts: 230

Terry Fritz wrote ...

Hi,

"It's the "POWER""... A normal TC blows off 1/3 to 1/2 of it's energy into a spark gap. Easily 100's of watts... The little Xenon tube will "fry"... I have 2kV "real" cold war day sparks gaps the will also burn up in TC use

They just can't stand the "heat"...

Cheers,

Terry

i have seen 15KW arc lamps they use in big movie projectors

Steve Conner

Sun Mar 04 2007, 12:16AM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

Xenon arc lamps are designed to be efficient at turning voltage into light. That means they will waste power in a Tesla coil circuit. They can also be very hard to trigger, and may not want to quench, either. Having said that, you ought to try it and tell us what happens.

asimov13647

Sat Apr 04 2009, 02:40AM

Registered Member #2048 Joined: Wed Mar 25 2009, 08:58PM
Location:
Posts: 8

I had wondered whether a xenon flash tube could be used as a TC spark gap. The syncronous spark gap is used instead of a static spark gap to achieve greater control. By using the HV peaks of the NST secondary as a trigger, one could finely tune the TC circuit as much as they wished. In addition to the xenon flash lamp, a thyratron could be used or a SCR circuit. I built my first TC over 40 years ago, using the instruction found in Popular Electronics. I recently reasearched the Net to determine where stood current TC technology. I had to do a lot of reading to learn why modern coils use a top load or why TC builders go through the trouble of building a rotarty spark gap. Which also led to some confusion. When TC builders refer to a syncronous spark gap, do they mean a rotary spark gap driven with a syncronous motor, or to a induction motor-driven spark gap in which the syncronousity is determined by the design of the spark gap, i.e. the number and spacing of the electrodes?

Shaun

Sat Apr 04 2009, 05:23AM

Registered Member #690 Joined: Tue May 08 2007, 03:47AM
Location: New Jersey, USA
Posts: 616

I have tried using xenon flashlamps as TC spark gaps. The results were very poor. I had a regular SGTC powered by a 15/30 NST with a sucker gap. It worked fairly well and easily hit 22" sparks. What I did was replace my spark gap with about 12 large U-shaped bulbs in series.

With the new gap in place, I got no breakout. I could get at most 2" arcs to a grounded screwdriver, but that was it. The bulbs also got very hot very fast. I also want to note that I removed the trigger electrodes from the bulbs, and even with 12 in series they still began to fire at around 35V on the variac (out of 120). Not sure what caused this.

In my opinion it would be a waste of time and money unless you were experimenting with something much larger and better suited than common flash tubes.

LithiumLord

Sat Apr 04 2009, 01:24PM

Registered Member #1739 Joined: Fri Oct 03 2008, 10:05AM
Location: Moscow, Russia
Posts: 261

Any Xe flash tube isn't meant for fast quenching, in fact it isn't meant for any quenching at all. The usage of arc lights does not only feature the same side-effect, but is also a very dangerous choice in fact - even under normal operation any drive error or the lamp's lifespan wearing off may very likely cause a destructive explosion, search YouTube for some graphic examples what a high-pressure lamp explosion looks like. As for the noise issues, those may be solved by adding audio insulation to the gap casing - but there seems to be no point in it as the TC's output sparks make way more audible noise anyway.
The idea of a gas-filled sparkgap isn't that pointless however - some thiratron tubes will make you a nice "sparkgap" with a triggering feature like in DRSSTCs and OLTCs.

>i have seen 15KW arc lamps they use in big movie projectors

Do NOT EVEN THINK of getting those, especially used ones - not to say never try anything with those besides watching a movie in a theatre ;)

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