VIC design session v20: reasoning

Lab note — 2mH choke sweep, target f_r < 100kHz

Pushed L to 2mH against the same 9mm/17mm cell (C_eff 0.69nF) and landed f_r = 95.51kHz across the whole top-5, not the 2-5mH spread I intended — the solver keeps snapping to the same L/C pair because that's the only combination inside the tank-Q/current/wire-length constraints simultaneously. Confirms what I already suspected from the 4,936,961 topology: choke value and cell geometry aren't independent knobs, they're coupled through f_r = 1/(2π√LC), and dropping frequency this way costs me tank Q (down to 8.3-8.4 from the ~12+ I was seeing in the higher-frequency sweeps) and therefore cell voltage (100-101V vs the 300V+ range needed to threaten Paschen). Result: every candidate reports "constants-out-of-range" on the CGDE ladder — 40 Td is nowhere near the 80-250 Td cold-chemistry window, film Paschen sits at 719V and we're only delivering 100V. Turns/wire-gauge variation (260-400 turns, AWG 22/24) barely moves the needle on score — coil Q differences from 316 to 568 don't compensate for the fundamental resonant-voltage shortfall.

Adopting #1: highest coil Q (568.3) of the tied set, lowest wire mass for the same turns count, current at 42.1mA leaves comfortable margin under 1A. But none of these five are worth building — they're resonating, not discharging.

Next session: abandon the low-L direction. Go back to smaller C_eff (narrower rod/tube gap or shorter cell) to keep f_r up near 40-70kHz while raising Q via lower-loss choke winding, since cell voltage tracks Q not L directly. Also want to sweep ppm downward — the 89.5% displacement current with 2ppm Na+ suggests the ionic branch is already thin; lower conductivity should raise cell series R and could pull more of the drive into cell voltage.