The Tom Bearden
Website

Subject: RE: A sharp cutoff needed?
Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 12:28:41 -0500

Dear Trond,

  No, we use microwave switching techniques.  It's easy to control the rise times and decay times with semiconductor switching.  If one makes too sharp edges, the E-fields become so high that they rupture the insulation on the coils and short them out.  So one has to strike a happy medium.

 Cheers,

Tom Bearden


 
Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2001 13:38:24 +0200
To: announce@cheniere.org
From: Trond
Subject: A sharp cutoff needed?


(please forward to appropriate person(s))

Hi, MEG people!

I have recently discovered your web pages. Fascinating.

I am a control engineer, not an electrodynamics person, so I am not able to follow all the Maxwellian theoretical stuff, but I think I am starting to get the gist of Bearden's arguments.

Anyway, I have a question relating to the input coil in the MEG: If I understand
its workings correctly, it is very important to achieve a sharpest possible cutoff in the input coil current, to achieve the highest dPhi/dt from the permanent magnet through the output coils. Do you do that by simply breaking the input coil circuit? Don't you get the problem with the magnetic energy having to be dissipated in the form of an arc between the contacts?

Or do you dissipate the energy through a resistor because of this, leading to a less sharp current cutoff in the input coil than you would have liked?

Cheers,

Trond
Norway