VIC design session v6: reasoning

Lab note, 7/3/26 — VIC resonant tank sweep, 180 candidates.

The sweep confirms what I'd expect from the choke-coil topology: for a fixed cell geometry (6.56nF, 17.5kΩ water leakage), tank Q trades directly against wire gauge and turn count. Thinner wire (AWG 26, 28) raises AC resistance, drops coil Q, and pulls tank Q down from 28.4 to 24.6 — less voltage step-up, but also lower series current, giving more headroom under the 1A limit. Tripling turns (300t, #4) barely moves the resonant frequency but adds resistance for no voltage gain — wasted copper. Doubling inductance to 2mH (#5) drops f_r to 31kHz, which cuts current to 326mA (best margin in the set) but sacrifices 86V of output — the frequency shift moves us further from the fuel-gas band Stan specified around 40-70kHz for water molecule polarization.

I'm adopting #1: 2×1mH chokes, 100 turns AWG 24, giving 341V at 43.95kHz with 617.9mA series current. It sits centered in the resonant band from #4,936,961/WO9207861A1, delivers the highest voltage intensification of any candidate that still clears the sub-1A current-limiting requirement described for choke-coils 9 and 12, and doesn't waste wire mass the way the 300-turn variant does. Coil Q (275) versus tank Q (28.4) shows the chokes themselves are not the bottleneck — the water capacitor's loss dominates, which is where next session's variation should go: sweep tube/rod gap and cell count to push water R higher without losing capacitance, and retest AWG 22 for margin at higher drive voltage.