Can it be done?

[candrewneal]

Intro:

Me and my colleague have known that DRSSTCs have maximum of two notes playing at once. The more notes played the larger the pulse width, the larger width will most likely result in loss of quality and damage to the components. We may have figured out a way to move around this issue. Using an ESP8266 we have wrote code so the pulses occur twice as often at halve the length and are the same duty cycle. So when using 8 notes instead of 2 the pulses are ¼ of their original length and still fits the power consumption limit. We have confirmed this by using a logic analyzer hooked to the output of the ESP8266.

The Question:

Is there any reason why this shouldn't work? The pulses are even less that their original length using the SD Interrupter code with only using two notes. Wouldn't reducing the length solve the two note restriction with the TS? There may be one element that we didn't take into consideration that will restrict us from accomplishing this.

Findings:

Here is our findings using the logic analyzer which shows the length between certain pulses and the length of the actual pulse. Logic-1 image shows that one pulse can be a length of 67 microseconds. Logic-2 image shows that the length between two pulses can be 496 microseconds. These values will change depending on the output.

[Bayley]

The pulse width matters for spark performance, not just the average duty cycle. DRSSTC's put more energy into the spark every cycle they are on (the primary current "rings up"), so if your ON times are too short the streamers will be very small.

[candrewneal]

We might be able to modify our code to compensate for that by dynamically changing the pulses to full length during playback. Is it safe to start experimenting with these ideas without damaging our TS?

[Bayley]

The TS is pretty self-limiting (the resonator has a high surge impedance and the primary is kind of lossy on account of being a PCB), but I can't guarantee anything. That being said if you do blow the bridge it's a quick repair and a $20 IGBT pack to fix it, so its not the end of the world.

[candrewneal]

Okay, we just didn't want to cause irreversible damage to our coil. It's good to know that it's a simple fix in case something does happen. I will post back and share our results.

[candrewneal]

UPDATE: We had a successful test using 4 voices playing a simple chord using our custom code. The streamers were about a foot in length and were very bright and visible. When we implement our dynamic code the results will be improved. I will post again with a video to visually show our results soon.