Re: tesla coil

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Ed Phillips by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <evp-at-pacbell-dot-net>

Tesla list wrote:
> 
> Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>"
<FutureT-at-aol-dot-com>
> 
> In a message dated 1/2/01 9:12:55 PM Eastern Standard Time, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
> writes:
> 
> > How do you tap a primary?  Is that refering to moving the connecting wire a
> >  little farther down the coil?  What's the point of that? Doesn't that make
> >  all the coil above that connection rather useless?
> 
> ANT,
> 
> The great Dr. Tesla designed the Tesla coil to be a tuned system.
> The resonant frequency of the secondary must match the resonant
> frequency of the secondary.  By selecting the right tap or tune point
> on the primary, we find that spot where the primary frequency matches
> the secondary frequency, and voila.... our sparks sprout forth like a
> golden headed medusa for all to be amazed and mesmerized.  This
> assumes of course that there are enough primary turns to even tune
> the coil.  Sometimes beginners build a coil which cannot be tuned,
> there just aren't enough primary turns considering the other coil
> parameters.  If the is not tuned properly, you'll get either very feeble
> sparks, or even none at all.
> 
> John Freau

	I suspect tuning is the cause of almost all of the failures I have read
about here.  The formulae for calculating inductance and resonant
frequency are so simple (grade school arithmetic) that I can't see any
excuse for not checking that the primary will give the right frequency
with whatever size capacitor is available.

Ed