WFC design session v29: reasoning

This sweep pins the v19 tank (1.29nF cell, 0.99mH/129T choke) and walks the drive ladder, so Q, f_r, and voltage magnification are all frozen at Q=101.2, f_r=99.41kHz, ×101.2 gain. That isolates the one lever left: drive voltage × duty, which sets both cell voltage and average input current. The trade-off is stark. Every candidate resonates identically and clears breakdown margin, band, and wire-length checks — but none land the vapor-film discharge inside the 80–250 Td cold-chemistry window. At 10–15kV across a 0.1mm film I'm reading 4036–6053 Td, deep in streamer regime, an order of magnitude above the CGDE super-Faradaic band. So the scoring plateaus at 0.845: I'm being rewarded for a clean resonant tank, not for lighting the right plasma. That's the honest limitation here — the model says my film is over-volted, not under.

Given that, I'm adopting #4: 120V drive → 12.1kV cell, 196mA average at 2% duty. It's Chris's approved bench point, breakdown margin still ×26, and 2% duty buys measurable gas rate without pushing the 8–12A circulating tank current past what AWG18 and the switch can carry continuously. #1/#2 are gentler (10.1kV) but no closer to the window; #5's 15kV only worsens Td and margin.

Next session: I need to attack Td directly, not voltage. Vary film thickness assumption and electrode gap (4.80mm is coarse), and sweep water ppm/temperature to shift λ_D and lower the film onset field. If the ladder won't drop into 80–250 Td by geometry, the CGDE claim doesn't hold on this cell — worth knowing before I build.