WFC design session v39: reasoning

Lab notebook — WFC resonant sweep, 6912 candidates, Randles+tank+vapor-film ladder.

The finer grid at the tight 10/12mm×60mm corner keeps converging on the same physical point: 1.44nF cell, Q~57, f_r ~99kHz, 749–807V from a 12–14V drive. What the surface_factor lever bought me is real but modest — pulling surface ×0.5 raises C_dl to ~1.6µF and holds displacement current at 99%, so the tank charges the double layers rather than leaking Faradaic current. Leakage still sits at 35–38mA at peak (leak score 0.71–0.73); that's the number the 4,798,661 inhibition circuitry has to keep suppressed as voltage climbs.

The honest disappointment: the vapor-film diagnostic lights at 299–322 Td — ABOVE the 80–250 Td cold-chemistry window I was aiming for. So even the "best" candidates are in townsend-avalanche but over-driven for the CGDE regime; the film Paschen (~719V) is being exceeded by the 749–807V cell. Scoring rewarded resonance quality more than window placement here, which is a scoring bias I need to correct.

Trade-off summary: higher peak_v climbs Td and yield potential but pushes past the window and raises leakage; Q is pinned by coil geometry (~57), and f_r ~99kHz is fixed by the small C. I can't independently move Td and voltage without a new lever.

Adopting #1 — same physics as #2/#3 but lowest duty (3%), so lowest average input (20mA) for identical resonant behavior. Best efficiency per equivalent state.

Next session: drop peak_v to ~10–11V to land the film at 150–200 Td, and widen the electrode gap slightly to lower field so the window and resonance coincide instead of fighting.