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Unbalanced forces in a mercury arc?

     This is the trigger circuit. The bottom box is a single shot pulser. The top box is the special circuit to provide the trigger pulses for the ignitron and the auto relay.

     Below is the auto relay with an isolated driver circuit. The relay coil is powered from the 12V car battery and is commutated by that FET in the middle.

     And finally a closeup of the ignitron. That stuff at the bottom is a resonant transformer and diode ladder to step up the voltage from the 5V provide by battery to the 400-1000V required to fire the ignitor. This isolated circuit charges a 1 uFd cap which is discharged through the ignitor element using a small SCR. The stuff on the upper right is an isolation transformer and a trigger circuit for the SCR.

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