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Re: Secondary preparation and capping



Original poster: "Terry Fritz" <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>

Hi Patrick,

At 11:14 PM 11/17/2001 -0600, you wrote:
>I am currently in the process of building my first coil. What I'm wonder is
>how necessary is it to sand down the secondary before winding it? My PVC has
>been sitting in my basement for a few years, so it's good and dry.  If I
>just cover it in a layer of polyurathane, do I *really* need to sand out
>every little bump, and the letters (which are red, not black)? This just
>seems like a lot of extra work, and I don't see how it would make that much
>of a difference.

"I" would sand it.  Sanding removes dirt, oil, and grim very quickly and
easily.  It only takes like 5 minutes.  Get 200 grit wet/dry paper and run
water from a garden hose on it while sanding.  The stuff sands right down
very quickly and the water washes the dust off.  It is really not hard at
all.  I don't think the water in the plastic will be any problem, but if
there is any conductive film under the windings it could destroy the coil.

>
>Secondly, does it make any difference where the caps (as in the plugs) for
>the secondary are placed? I don't have access to the tools necessary to make
>nice round circles to plug the ends with, so would just sticking PVC endcaps
>on be acceptable?

Sure, I don't use plugs or end caps for high voltage.  I just make the coil
long enough ;-)  Any plug or cap like for PVC is fine.  If you seal the
coil with caps.  Be sure to leave a hole so air can get inside the coil.
Otherwise, water mist and such may get trapped.  Also, if you glue the caps
on and seal the coil, it is possible the adhesive will form an explosive
fuel/air mixture in the coil.  Someone actually blew their coil up that way
:O  An arc ignited the trapped glue vapors in the sealed coil.

Cheers,

	Terry

>
>Thanks,
>"Steadily getting more excited about completing his first coil"
>Patrick.
>