My SSG And First 20 Charge Runs

[Tom C]

Hm, my scope shows 30-35 Volt peaks yet my neon bulb lights up pretty brightly when charge battery is disconnected (just for an instant to test)...I was under the impression that the neon wouldn't light up until 50 or 100 Volts?

well you know the rating of your bulb, what the breakdown voltage is..... what does that tell you about your meter, and what does it tell you about how fast the spike is travelling?

Tom C

[Mike Swanson]

well you know the rating of your bulb, what the breakdown voltage is..... what does that tell you about your meter, and what does it tell you about how fast the spike is travelling?

Tom C

Well my guess that I am actually getting voltage spikes higher than my waveform shows--probably where you see a vertical line spiking up from the top. I am guessing that this actually goes higher than 90 V but the scope can't sample fast enough. Or because of my ignorance and despite my stalwart noodling I can't manage to set the scope to sample fast enough.

[Mike Swanson]

For future reference--the scope was fine, just had to briefly disconnect the charge battery, take a shot with the scope, then reconnect fast so as not to damage transistor. Was able to look at the spike

[Mike Swanson]

Did some modifications, battery COP seemed to go down and system COP also down a bit. Wondered if there was anything obvious I should improve from these poor quality photos .

Top of circuit board

Power coil to batteries:

Connectors are 10 AWG or so wire inside the copper tube:

Circuit board bottom with copper tube battery connectors:

Mike