Re: First light - NOTHING HAPPENED!

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

Original poster: "Gregory Hunter by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <ghunter31014-at-yahoo-dot-com>

I suspect your 2L soda bottle cap is the problem. I
suggest a 6-pack of 12oz beer bottles or wine cooler
bottles, glass please, no plastic.  This will give you
something close to .005uF (5nF).  FYI, a single 12oz
beer bottle is good for 750-900pF.  For your 15/30
NST, a 6-pack is a good starting point.  Later, you
might get better results with more bottles, up to 9 or
so in parallel.

FYI, a number of small bottles actually gives more
capacitance than a few big ones.  The reason is that
capacitance is based on the surface area of the
plate/dielectric surface area, not on the volume of
the vessel.  Since the volume of a cylindrical vessel
increases much faster than it's surface area as it
gets bigger, using a few big bottles tends to yield a
heavy capacitor with low capacitance.

Also, your top load may be too big for your smallish
power supply.  A 6" diameter ball covered with foil
would make a better top load for first light.  For
initial tune up, I'd also put a sharp breakout point
on it, such as a thumb tack.  After you get it
sparking, you can drop the breakout point and try a
larger top load.

I've done a lot of experimenting with beer bottle
caps.  Check out my web site some time.

Best Regards,

Greg
http://hot-streamer-dot-com/greg

--- Tesla list <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com> wrote:
> Original poster: "Robert by way of Terry Fritz
> <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <obiwan1186-at-sunflower-dot-com>
> 
> Bad results on the first light of my 4" coil. here's
> the specs
> 
> secondary - 4" pvc wound with 850 turns of 22 guage
> wire and sealed with
> polyurithane. sealed off with lexan discs. heavily
> grounded with 5, 15"
> sections of copper pipe pounded into soaking wet
> ground and wired in
> parallel.
> 
> primary - 8" inner diameter - 13 turns of 1/4"
> copper tubing spaced 1/4"
> apart on lexan supports
> 
> spark gap - RQ/TCBOR gap with 7 gaps, 1/2" copper
> pipe.
> 
> capacitor - 1 2L soda bottle with salt water on the
> inside and the
> outside.
> 
> topload - 2 pie pans bolted back-to-back and 4"
> aluminum dryer ducting.
> 
> power supply - 15/30 NST
> 
> I turned on the power and heard the spark gap firing
> but no sparks were
> breaking out at the top. i checked again to make
> sure i had it wired
> correctly, and it still didn't work. i tried getting
> 1" strikes to a
> grounded rod, still nothing. i then attempted to
> tune it by tapping into
> the primary at various locations. still nothing. i
> then tapped into
> other gaps in the RQ gap and tinkered with the
> primary to no avail. I
> then checked my tranny to make sure it hadn't fried
> but it worked
> perfectly. I decided to give up when it started
> raining, and i thought
> "rain+high voltage=ZZZZAAAAP" . Can anyone please
> tell me why it is not
> working??!!!
> 
> 
> 


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