8.4kw SGTC First Light

Chip Fixes, Sun Jun 22 2014, 08:07AM

A college professor and I have undertaken a little project for the last couple of months and today we tested the whole system for the first time (it sounds simple but we worked for 16 hours today). It's 3am and I just got home so I'll post more tomorrow. My apologies for the RF interference and horrible video taking skills (watching it in 480p fullscreen gives best results):

The 1/4" steel electrodes on the rotary spark gap were vaporizing too quickly, which limited us to 40 - 50% power input. It was also untuned, and there was terrible coupling between the primary and secondary. Molybdenum electrodes are on there way. We still have a ways to go but it works!

Secondary coil specs:
8" x 45" (48" form)
1170 turns 19 awg wire
Resonant frequency (including topload): 155khz

We still have a ways to go, but it works!