Taking a break from hand-winding the torroid (hands are sore from straightening that 14awg as I wound)...
Anyway, I was messing with the ignition coil circuit again and did some more rigorous tests (video soon)...I was more right 12 years ago 🤦♂️😅
It's not a postive feedback loop....threw me for a loop because it is operating in flyback polarity 100%...it's so much simpler...kinda bummed it doesn't reroute the self/mutual inductions....it just omits them all together. But it's definitely not ionizing the airgap with the forward induced pulse and dumping the cap across the air-gap....
It's still free power amplification, but not as eloquent as I imagined.
Anyway...remember a standard ignition coil is an autotransformer, just like a variac...but the wiper arm isn't movable (its a center-tap), and the coil is assymetrical (way higher impedance on the secondary portion).
So, there's two ways to run a variac...step-down (usual mode), and step-up (not common).
In step-down mode, the source is applied across the entire coil, and the load/output is on the bottom of the coil and the wiper arm. For ease of calculations, let's say source is 240v across the entire coil, and there are 240 turns....that means 1v/turn. So whatever turn you set the wiper arm to is the voltage output 240-0v...so setting it to midway, 120 turns, outputs 120v.
Now, step-up mode....reverse source and load....source is on the bottom of the coil, and the wiper arm. Load is across entire coil....so, coil is still 240 turns, but source is now 120v....it's still 1v/turn, so if we set source to 120 turns, it's 120v at midway, plus another 120 turns up to load...@1v/turn it's 120v+120v...load sees 240v
So, back to the ignition coil....it's a variac in step-up mode (just induction optimized and wayyyyy more turns, and thinner windings higher up the series coil)...if we remember back to the behavior of a capacitor across an inductor...voltage transfers instantly across the inductor, before current (therefore before opposite induction voltage)....so, instantaneously before any induced pulse, there is a huge current-less step-up voltage in phase with applied primary voltage at HV lead....making it HV+....
The current hasn't left the capacitor yet, but the diodes are turned on to conduct, and the LV+ is many orders of magnitude below the HV+, so it conducts the LV+ away from the primary inductor, the HV+ only losses a tiny voltage potential because it's impedance/turns is/are so much higher, then the remaining HV+ pulls the current up from the LV-, amplifying the total wattage for free....
In the video, I'm going to make, I will show the 3-contact spark-gap I remembered. The infamous "split the positive" setup I did all the years ago, and it's waaaaay more reliable and obvious (this ties into so many OU devices)...I'm gonna try and get it on super-slowmo too...I put some UV glasses on and you can actually see the spark from the HV+ and the current coming up from the LV-. The neon is pushed so far over-rating the orange neon is blue-white, and the negative is sputtering metal onto the glass (super high-velocity electrons/ions)....I need to get ahold of ionizing smoke detector and see if it's pushing x-rays....but one more video first lol
I figured it out through a couple of observations (like the more energetic arc can't jump as long of a gap as the normal inductive flyback arc...so must be lower voltage), but most notably when messing with the tri-spark-gap configuration (split-positive)....I made the gap to the negative too far, and the HV lead Arc'd to the diodes (LV+), and not to the LV- at all....it fried the diode chain, and I realized the HV+ arc'd to LV+ as LV- bias and over-voltaged the 6k reverse voltage of the chain...
Here's where I verified what I thought I remembered...lol
https://eepower.com/technical-articles/constructing-and-operating-an-autotransformer/Anyway, gonna make the video now...takes forever to upload these days...will post a follow up with it soon.
P.S. I think this may relate to Stan's negative choke (wiper arm)....especially looking at something said to P85 years ago by a person who knew his shit on Stan's setup...yes P85, I be lurking lol....the guy who told you how to wire Lawton PLL...
[EDIT]...
As the HV+ pulls the current from the LV-, there must be "Chain-Linked" reverse current flow out of the primary (same as flyback collapse) which would increase the HV+ charge....so there is some positive feedback....it's just not the "prime-mover" like I thought.
