New to list, a few questions

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

Original poster: "Sean Kinkade by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <thopter-at-earthlink-dot-net>

  Hello all,
 
I am about to construct my first coil but I am so new to this that I decided to
unsubscribe to this list shortly after I subscribed since I figured I wouldn't
understand what was being discussed.  Evidently unsubscribing didn't work, so
here I am.  I guess I'll stay on the list.
 
I've been reading and researching as much as possible on the Internet about
TC's so I'd have a decent understanding about them before I dove in and built
one.   I have forgotten 90% of all the basic electronics I learned 13 years ago
as a bio-med equipment repairman in the Army so I'm needing a good basic
electronics refresher course.  Anyone know of a free or cheap tutorial program
available?  My main weakness is the topic of capacitance, pretty important
here!
 
What I lack in electrical knowledge I make up for in mechanical design
knowledge so I shouldn't have any trouble with the hardware aspect of coiling. 
I have a 9" metal lathe and a medium size milling machine in my garage plus an
excellent CAD program on my computer so I can machine any custom parts I need. 
I also live in the greater Orlando, Florida area and we have a surplus store
here to die for called Skycraft.  They have everything electronic and
mechanical there and I do mean everything....but they were sold out of neon
sign transformers!  That's something I still have to find.
 
Now, a few questions: 
 
1) Is there any physical limitation to a rotary spark gap if the mechanical
aspects of it were theoretically unlimited?
 
I have a brushless D.C. motor ( approx. .5 HP) that produces 5,300 RPM per
volt. It is from Germany and used for R/C airplanes.
It can safely handle a 9.6 volt 2400 mah power supply which means it spins at
50,880 RPM with no load.    Even geared down 4 to one for torque this could
possibly spin the rotary spark gap at over 12,000 RPM.   I'm confident I could
machine a spark disc that would not fly apart at this speed.   If I had to I
could even built an engine powered rotary spark gap device using a 1 HP R/C car
engine.  Output of the car engine is 34,000 RPM with laod applied.  It would be
noisy but boy would it rev up.
 
2) What effect does a higher frequency spark gap produce?   What is the highest
resonant frequency anyone has ever heard of anyone producing with a Tesla coil?
 
3)  I hope I'm not a heretic among heretics when I say that I am getting into
this field to explore possible levitation effects on matter.
 
4)  Has anyone on this list ever experimented with mixing different forms of
energy
such as operating TC's in the vicinity of Van de Graaf machines,  running
multiple TC's in close proximity with different frequency spark gaps, playing
with lasers or microwaves in the vicinity of TC's?   
 
5)  Has anyone ever designed a rotating Tesla coil?  What would happen (if
anything) if the unit spun around the secondary coil axis at a high rpm?   A
rotary spark gap could be designed to be co-axial for this configuration. 
Or....would anything interesting happen if the TC unit remained stationary but
the grounding point were disc mounted and spun around the secondary coil with a
rotary contact?  Would a sheath of discharge surround the toroid?
 
I have the plans for BTC-5 from Information Unlimited but that baby is a
monster so I ordered the plans for BTC-4 and will make the it my first coil
project.  I'll build the BTC-5 next year.
 
Thanks for any constructive replies.
 
Sean