VIC design session v89: reasoning

This sweep is honest but it's telling me the choke branch is the wrong knob. Every one of the 48 candidates converged on the same cell (1.37nF, 8 tubes parallel) and the same 100µH chokes, so f_r pinned itself at 303.9kHz — a factor of three above my practical 1-100kHz ceiling. The screen only let me move turns and gauge, and those barely touch inductance at 20-41 turns, so all five leaders sit within 0.001 of each other on score. That's not a real ranking; it's noise on a plateau.

What the ranking DOES show is the Q-vs-loss trade. Going 20→41 turns (AWG 18) drops coil Q from 3546 to 1730 as I add wire resistance, and tank Q creeps down 27.0→26.7, shaving cell voltage 324→321V and current 847→840mA. Jumping to AWG 19 (#5) doubles AC R and knocks tank Q to 26.5. So more turns and thinner wire both cost me — with 100µH the tank is capacitance-limited, not inductance-limited, and adding turns is pure loss without moving f_r where I need it.

I'm adopting #1 as the reference point — fewest turns, highest coil Q, lowest resistive loss, cell still lights the film at 129 Td squarely in the 3-6 eV cold-chemistry window — but flagged NON-COMPLIANT on frequency. It's a baseline, not a build.

Next session I unlock choke inductance directly: I need roughly 1-2mH per side to pull f_r down toward 40-70kHz at this 1.37nF. I'll also sweep cell count/tube gap to raise C_eff, and hold Na+ at 2ppm/25°C so the only thing moving is the tank. Fix the frequency violation first; re-rank on Td afterward.