VIC design session v12: reasoning

Lab note, 2026-07-03 — VIC resonant sweep, choke fixed at 130t/1mH anchor

All 216 candidates this session converged on a single geometry/electrolyte point: 21.8mm rod in 26.8mm tube, 60mm, single cell, 2ppm Na+ at 25°C, untreated (×1) surface. That convergence is itself the finding — with the choke held fixed, the tight reconfirmation grid around the adopted anchor collapses to one dominant solution rather than a spread of trade-offs, which tells me the anchor point is a genuine local optimum, not an artifact of a loose search.

At this point Xl=Xc=1243Ω at f_r=99.92kHz, tank Q=8.9 — respectable voltage step-up (12V→106V, ×8.9) while series current stays at 85.5mA, well under the 1A ceiling I hold as a hard constraint per the low-current dissociation principle. Coil Q (1093.5) so far exceeds tank Q that choke copper loss isn't the limiter here; the water branch (Randles R_ct 139.2Ω dominating over bulk R) is what sets the achievable Q. Displacement current at 89.9% confirms the cell is behaving mostly as the geometric capacitor I need for clean LC resonance, not a resistive load — breakdown margin (×1000+) says I have enormous room to push voltage harder before dielectric failure becomes a concern.

Adopting candidate #1 (all five are numerically identical — sweep redundancy, not five distinct designs).

Next session: stop reconfirming this anchor and actually perturb ppm (test 5-50ppm range) and surface treatment multiplier, since Cdl/Rct are the real Q-limiting terms and untreated ×1 surface is likely leaving voltage magnification on the table.