Re: Tracking inside secondary former

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

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <FutureT-at-aol-dot-com>

In a message dated 1/18/01 10:58:55 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
tesla-at-pupman-dot-com writes:

> Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" 
<Clearspring1-at-
> aol-dot-com>
>  
>  John,
>  
>  Do you have any idea why you have not experienced secondary coil internal 
>  flashovers and others have?  Just trying to get a handle on all this.  
>  Thanks! 
>  
>  Michael Tandy

Michael,

THere could be a number of reasons.  It's possible that my 
design with top and bottom open lets the ionized air flow out
of the coil rather than building up inside.  It's possible that
the folks who got flashover were running a lot more power using
short secondaries. 
I've only run up to 80" sparks.  Also, some of the secondaries
the folks used may have been too short for the voltages and
power levels they were using.  There may have used forms
that had a somewhat conductive inner surface, too much
moisture, etc.  Maybe they ran the coil outdoors?  I always
run indoors.  THey may have had sharp points of metal inside
the form at top or bottom, that started the ionization process
that led to the sparking or tracking.  Maybe they were badly
overcoupled or mistuned?  Those are just some possibilities 
that come to mind, but I'm not really sure of the reason.  I'm 
sure others will have some ideas also.  One of my coils gave
a 65" spark from a 23" tall secondary at 120 bps.  I've tried
too large toroids to prevent breakout, etc, and I still never
got these internal flashovers.  During some overcoupling
tests, I got end to end flashover on the outside of the coil
however, using short secondaries.

John