VIC design session v31: reasoning

Reading these five back, the sweep did not do what I set out to do. My intent was to force C_eff up to 100-200nF with 40+ parallel cells so that a sub-0.2mH choke would land Xl=Xc down in the 40-70kHz band. But every surviving candidate topped out at 8 cells parallel, C_eff = 1.37nF, and with the 0.1mH chokes that puts resonance at 303.9kHz — a factor of ~5-8 above my practical ceiling. That single violation is why all five are stuck at ~0.274 despite otherwise doing everything right.

And they DO resonate beautifully everywhere else: 129 Td film, squarely inside the 3-6 eV cold-chemistry window I'm chasing, ~324V across the 0.1mm vapor film, 96.5% displacement current, breakdown margin off the chart at 2ppm. The Q-vs-loss trade is clean and monotonic — #1 at 20 turns/AWG18 holds coil Q 3546 and tank Q 27.0 (324V); walking turns up to 60 (#4) or dropping to AWG20 (#5) only bleeds coil Q down toward 976 and shaves cell voltage to 317V. More copper, more turns = more AC loss, less magnification. No reason to pay that.

I'm adopting #1: fewest turns, heaviest gauge, highest Q, highest film voltage and Td. It's my best physics even though it fails the frequency gate.

Next session the lever is capacitance, not the choke. I need to actually build C_eff up — push cell count to 40-60 parallel (or widen plates / shrink the 8mm gap) to get 100-200nF, THEN the same 0.1mH choke drops f_r into 40-70kHz and I keep the 129 Td window without the violation.