ENERGY AMPLIFICATION

[MarkE]

Zeners  behave very differently than a spark gap. A spark gap has a strike voltage and then once the arc is struck a holding current at a much lower voltage.  A zener breaks down at the zener voltage but the voltage does not drop once conduction starts.

SIDAC type transient absorbers behave much more like a spark gap than zener diodes.  They hold off up to their breakdown voltage and then drop to a low resistance state until the current falls below the holding value. 

In all three cases, energy is dissipated that will have to be made up somewhere else.

[a.king21]

My understanding is that Tito used  a zener to prevent runaway. He doesn't use transistors but a series of Tesla switches.
When OU kicks in his voltages get so high so very fast that they become dangerous.
He prevents this by using a zener. I would use an NE2 myself if I got to that happy state.

[Magluvin]

Zeners  behave very differently than a spark gap. A spark gap has a strike voltage and then once the arc is struck a holding current at a much lower voltage.  A zener breaks down at the zener voltage but the voltage does not drop once conduction starts.

SIDAC type transient absorbers behave much more like a spark gap than zener diodes.  They hold off up to their breakdown voltage and then drop to a low resistance state until the current falls below the holding value. 

In all three cases, energy is dissipated that will have to be made up somewhere else.

The idea is to emulate a magnetically quenched spark, where the magnets blow out the spark quicker than normal spark discharge. The zener is not 'the' spark gap. It is the quencher.

Sidac is a neat device. Have quite a few actually.  So instead of the switch, diode and zener, we could use a sidac, diode and zener(quencher) to emulate a mag quenched spark gap. The sidac alone will deliver almost all the discharge caps charge due to it wont shut off till a min current level is reached, thus the zener to cut off the discharge before the cap is emptied.

Mags

[Farmhand]

The idea is to emulate a magnetically quenched spark, where the magnets blow out the spark quicker than normal spark discharge. The zener is not 'the' spark gap. It is the quencher.

Sidac is a neat device. Have quite a few actually.  So instead of the switch, diode and zener, we could use a sidac, diode and zener(quencher) to emulate a mag quenched spark gap. The sidac alone will deliver almost all the discharge caps charge due to it wont shut off till a min current level is reached, thus the zener to cut off the discharge before the cap is emptied.

Mags

Hi Mag's, Problem with sidac's and even GDT's is that the breakdown voltage can't be easily adjusted like a spark gaps "gap" can
be. Spark gaps can spark in reverse as well if conditions allow it, it's happened to me.

In my opinion unless using over 600 volts input then back to back mosfets or IGBT's is the way to go, if the switch closes very
quickly and then opens very quickly the optimum result is achieved, Tesla designed a lot of "mercury breaks/circuit controllers",
those would have behaved like a non sparking low resistance on/off switch much like a mosfet. If feeding a tanked primary or
a primary with a "reflecting" capacitance then the coil discharge on switch off charges the resonance capacitor anyway and no
HV spike occurs. Armstrong oscillators and other DC circuit controllers can use a capacitor across the switch so that when the
switch opens fast rather than creating a huge voltage with no load (except if it breaks down the switch), instead the coil
discharges into the capacitor then the capacitor discharges back through the coil towards the supply or the discharge capacitor
then basically the coil has a capacitor in series with it at both ends.

Like this primary circuit below, the mosfet switches on to charge the coil, then when it switches off the coil discharges into
capacitor "C3" then "C3" discharges back through the primary coil to capacitor "C1" and at the right moment the switch opens
again for the correct period and the cycle repeats. That induces a perfect sine wave in the secondary resonant tanks. No need
for any primary coil spike suppression or quenching, the current is started and stopped suddenly which is what is needed to
discharge the coil well. It's how you utilize the coils discharge that makes the difference, if there is no load for it then the energy
will always look for an out to equalize the potentials. From 12 volts input I get about 40 volt peak voltage at the drain in the form
of nice neat half sine looking lumps at the driven frequency. When the mosfet turns off the current through the switch stops
just as quickly. And the mosfet can be switched under intelligent control, spark gap is "dumb" for want of a better word.

At immense levels of voltage and current then the options are truly limited.

As Tesla said to the Council in court something like, " I was known for producing those effects for which I was called a freak using
the damped waves". For his magnifying transmitter and such he was using "un-damped waves" or continuous waves. In other
words sine waves of a constant amplitude or very nearly so.

He stated that the causing of the very high potentials using damped waves was good for freaking people out, but for useful
power transmissions and signal transmissions then a continuous or un-damped wave is best, even required.

The magnifying Transmitter is a device of resonance and sine waves, it should not produce large voltage spikes and damped waves.

..

Much higher resonant rise can be achieved using un damped and driving the coil/transformer with pulses at twice every cycle of the
fundamental frequency of the L and C in the oscillating circuit. If excited at a harmonic frequency damped waves are produced
and resonant rise is small and only in the oscillations if damping or loading is very small. A system excited at twice every cycle can
output more and maintain a resonant rise over a higher load than a system excited at every half cycle like my DC diver, and a
system excited at a lower harmonic has trouble maintaining a resonant rise even for one oscillation of non excitement if damping
is not very low or the setup is loaded.

[Dave45]

Are we ever going to understand and find ou using conventional circuits.

Maybe we need to find a way to pull energy from the core, conventional circuits just dont seem to cut it.

Some idea's Iv been thinking about.