Hi guys. I have been testing with a very basic setup along the lines of SR193's early videos, which means
I am using a PWM driver (single output) and a HV flyback driver and a spark gap. I am currently just running
some very basic testing at a fairly low power drive level, with the PWM driver circuit consuming about 1.5 Watts or so
from a 12V battery when powering a tiny ~0.25W,12V light bulb attached to my output coil.
I also saw a similar effect as was mentioned here of hearing the PWM driver circuit making funny whining/hissing noises
when I was touching the frequency adjust pot at certain frequency settings, and the little light bulb would go a lot
brighter when that happened. This only happened when the spark gap was activated. It seems HV spikes/noise
is probably being coupled into the PWM driver circuit when I touch the freq adjust pot, with my body acting as
an antenna of sorts, and this is making the PWM driver circuit act unstable. My Digital ammeter showed an
increase in current draw to the PWM driver when this was happening and the light bulb got a lot brighter. That would
seem not to be the effect we are looking for since it makes the PWM driver draw more current.

Something funny I saw happening this evening was at certain settings I was seeing the light bulb get a little bit
brighter when I switched on the spark gap driver, and the current meter reading for the PWM would drop a bit in
some cases, but this was only a minor and unstable effect, and in most cases the PWM input current would increase
whenever the light bulb got brighter.
With more fiddling with frequency and pulse width on the PWM driver, in some cases my DVM was actually reading a negative
current for the PWM driver input current. LOL!

The most likely explanation there is the DVM is acting loopy because
of the spark gap throwing off HV spikes into all the wiring, which is making my DVM act up. I have a small cheapo
analog multimeter that can read DC current up to 250 mA, but I accidentally set the duty cycle too high on the PWM at one
point and blew the fuse in the little analog multimeter.

I will need to see if I can get some more fuses somewhere, or try
to obtain a better analog ammeter to read the input current to the PWM driver. At one point the digital ammeter was
reading close to -1.5A for the PWM input current from the battery.

When using sparkgaps, analog meters would seem to
be a must. The same is probably a good idea when using a tesla coil for the HV pulses.
P.S. I temporarily put a jumper wire across the fuse terminals on my analog multimeter, and I am back to reading
positive PWM input currents again with the analog multimeter.
I can adjust the PWM to certain frequencies which causes the light bulb to get a fair bit brighter when I activate
the spark gap, but so far the input current draw of the PWM increases when this happens, except for a few
very minor cases where the PWM input current seemed to drop a little bit when the light got a little bit brighter.
I can also adjust the PWM to frequencies where activating the spark gap makes the little light bulb turn off,
and in this case the PWM input current drops. Interesting, but still not the type of effect we are after, I think.
