Re: Tesla coil sizes and idea

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

Original poster: "Jim Lux" <jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net> 


 > These values usually produce a coil with a spark length of 1.25 x the sec.
 > winding length.  Values greater than this will breakdown with time unless
 > protected by a 4 x sec. dia. toroid.  With our design parameters we use
2:1
 > toroid/sec. dia. ratio for most all of our coils.  Good performance with
out
 > headaches of flashover, etc.  Stability is important in coils running day
 > in/day out such as museum applications, etc.
 >

Especially bearing in mind that if you're not input power constrained, you
can always get to spark size X by scaling everything up.  It's only if
you're trying to get the most inches/watt or some other metric that you're
going to go with a less conservative design.

I'd suspect that many, many coils have some important engineering
dimension/detail established by "stock on hand"... you happen to have a
piece of 10" PVC pipe, or a particular NST, or picked up a big spool of
magnet wire for a song, etc....

Rare is the coil that is designed to purpose from ground up with use of
scrounged something as a design driver.