After completing my diode sticks, I had to see some sparks. First I lashed together a 10-12H charging reactor using two gapped MOT secondaries in series. The coil was then fired up with a makeshift toroid and the MOT bank wired in parallel, delivering about 11kV to the tank capacitor (through charging reactor). Despite the low coupling (secondary was pretty high), and complete lack of time spent tuning and optimising, the performance showed some real potential. Most importantly, everything ran as it should with no parts destroyed!
The only problem I did have was the variable frequency drive for the RSG which kept shutting down. Fortunately I’m fairly sure this can be rectified with proper shielding.
The other issue is that the low input voltage requires a very narrow gap setting which is asking for trouble:
Other than that, it is all coming along nicely. I can’t wait to see how it goes when properly tuned with the MOTs in series and several times the input power!
You can see a pretty terrible video of the setup here:
Stay tuned for a full power update. It’s easily gonna hit the floor!