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Re: Tesla Coil toroid Size



John, All,
What would be a valid measuring technique(s) for
measuring input watts under normal TC operation
(non-controlled sparks)? My coil setup includes a Vrms
meter and current meter at the control box before the
transformer. I usually set my input voltage to a given
value, then increase my inductive ballast until the
sparks start flowing. When this occurs, I do not see
variation on the voltage, but the current meter jumps
about 5 amps back and forth during operation. I placed a
larger toroid on my TC this weekend (Ed Sonderman
Dual-Stack style - retuned coil of course) and ran it
for about 10 minutes. I did not notice any change in
current as with my single toroid. I deduct from this
that input watts did not increase with the larger
toroid. I should note that my output sparks did not
increase or the output type (multiple streamers). My
coil apparently wants a larger toroid.

Is it possible that smaller toroids are deep in the em
field and larger toroids are physically nearer the edge
of the em field thus changing breakout conditions? I'm
not sure how large a typical em field is. I'm just
contemplating the hypothesis.

The input current is the current charging the cap. I
think measuring current at the sparkgap may be a more
valid test. Any thoughts anyone?

Bart

Tesla List wrote:
> 
> Original Poster: "John H. Couture" <couturejh-at-worldnet.att-dot-net>
> 
>   John F -
> 
>   I was happy to hear that someone had performed the input watts test.
> There are several possibilities why you did not find an increase in the
> input watts when you increased the toroid size. One reason could be that if
> you were not using controlled sparks the varying streamers would make it
> difficult if not impossible to correlate the streamer energy with the input
> energy (watt seconds).
> 
>   When you say that the larger toroid holds more energy for fewer streamers
> do you mean that the toroid is storing energy from more than one bang? As
> you know I mentioned this in a past post and there were so many members
> that felt this was impossible they almost convinced me that I was wrong.
> However, it may be that energy is stored in the electric field surrounding
> the coil but not in the toroid.
> 
>   Even with controlled sparks the increase in input watts when the toroid
> is increased may be hard to detect if the input is varying. A small
> increase in the spark length does not require much energy. What were your
> input and output conditions when you made your tests?
> 
>   John Couture
> 
> ---------------------------------