Coils for Ion

[garfield at pilgrimhouse.com]

On Thu, 04 Jun 1998 09:11:52 -0400, Clare Snyder <snyder at huron.net>
wrote:

>Just a minute, guys. I'm no EE, but what has AC impedence got to do with
>a straight DC current measurement? By the time we are measuring this
>Ionization current, all we have running through this coil secondary is
>straight, flatline DC. No? This flat-line DC doesn't give a hoot what
>the impedence in Henries is as long as IT is not attempting to change at
>any great speed. I think we've got a bit of a red herring in the nets.
>
>Just my two Ngwe's worth

Oh oh, there's about to be a sudden depreciation in Ngwe's.

The ionization currents are a SIGNAL of varying value, so they are NOT
DC, but have ac components. If you blocked them all, except for the
average DC value, then you'd have no signal! You'd have, as you say, a
flatline DC value, which wouldn't do you much good for detecting things
happening with time.

It's conventional to talk about the "frequency spectrum" of a signal if
it is changing at all, and how that signal is passed/attenuated IS
affected by the total impedance of a device in the path of the signal.
The faster the signal changes, the higher the frequency components that
make it up.

Gar