Sunday, 8 January 2012

Spinning up the Spark Gap Motor

Finished the last bit of wiring on the synchronous motor and the step down transformer supplying it. Annoyingly the little ceramic 3 pole terminal block cracked when re-mounting it, on closer inspection it really is a horribly made piece of crap from B+Q. I have ordered a similar looking unit from eBay tonight, hopefully it's better quality and will fit the mount holes already drilled, if not I may create my own from a block of perspex. Anyway time to plug in the the spark gap module. Fingers crossed.
Well that went pretty well. The spark gap disc seems to be well balanced and the motor is very quiet, not that that will make any difference once the gaps are firing. The motor took more than 40 seconds to come to a complete rest after unplugging. There is a fair bit of weight involved in the spark gap disc but I still think this is a good indication to the quality of the bearings in this little motor.
Hers's a close-up of the cracked terminal block. I had to remove it when I was wiring in the cable in the pic as I had trouble tightening the cable clamp screws. When I checked the screw heads non of the slots were formed correctly. I used the 2 best formed clamp screws to secure the new wiring and refitted the block, this is when it cracked. Two steps forward, one step back.


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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous14 January 2012 at 00:04

    Paul,
    I love the work you have done so far and admire the amount of craftsmaship you have put into this project. However, there is a major problem in your design: There is no place to vent the large amounts of corrosive O3 (Ozone) which will be produced by the spark gap. The ozone will corrode every bare piece of metal inside the base within a few minutes. Since the transformer is located inside the base, you will probably destroy it within a short time of operating the coil. If you turn the panel with the spark gap electrodes around so it is near the outside panel of the wall and drill an outlet vent hole then drill an inlet vent hole with a fan on the other side of the base, you may be able to save the project. Do NOT place the fan on the outlet as the ozone will destroy it - place it on the inlet. Your work is beautiful and I would hate to see it destroyed so you might want to consider this before you start testing the high voltage. Good luck and great job!

    Clif Beam from the United States.

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  2. Paul Walsh14 January 2012 at 00:34

    Hi Clif
    Hope you read this and if I'm wrong you can email me direct so we can further discuss this (email address is in my profile). Presume you mean large amounts of ozone produced by the rotary spark gap. If you re-check my design you will see the SRSG is not in the enclosed base, it's on the second level which is wide open to allow air circulation. I think the rotation of the spark gap disc should be sufficient to dissipate the ozone (and ionised air molecules). I have also thought about the possibility of adding small fins to the centre of the disc to to create extra airflow, but I haven't seen this done on any other builds so decided against it.
    Regards
    Paul

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