Steven - Your Tesla Project

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: Karl Lindheimer <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Hi Steven,

I've been building coils for some time now, and owe much of my success to 
the incredible knowledge base on the Pupman list.  It's great that you've 
decided to build a TC for your project.  (But please make safety your # 1 
priority.)

Why not take a look at this URL from Gary Laus:

http://www.laushaus.com/tesla/minicoilcontest/

He is one of our resident experts, and he hosted a contest a while 
back.  You will gain further understanding by reading the specs of the 
various coils.  Your degree of success with your own project will be 
increased if you can "copy" other working designs.

With my first coil (built from scraps) I made poly caps, party cup caps, 
beer bottle caps, battery jar caps, until finally using an MMC.
However, I learned a lot about capacitor design and theory in doing so.

Also, I don't want to post this to the list, but you are most definitely 
going to need to rewind your secondary coil.  You need a single layer of 
28-32 gauge magnet wire, approximately 800-1400 turns with a height to 
width ratio of between 3-1, 4-1, or even 5-1 (almost too tall)  The 
secondary should have no holes drilled through it or an arc could flash 
through it from the top turns to the bottom grounded turn.

Your doorknob "toroid" is cute, but the primary function of the toroid is 
to act as a large capacitor, which will lower your coils resonant 
frequency, which in turn determines where you will tap your primary to get 
both in tune.  The toroid will need to be within a certain capacitance 
range to enable realistic tuning.  The size of your streamers will be based 
on your toroid's size.  Again, look at the work of other's and reach the 
appropriate conclusion.

The many software programs out there will enable you to play with the 
numbers before you actually spend money, or build things that might not be 
suitable for your project.  I estimate that I spent several months, just 
listening to the Pupman list, and researching web sites before I felt 
confident enough to attempt a coil.  Even then, my first coil barely 
performed.  So I read some more, and posted intelligent questions to the 
list, and rebuilt again and again before I got decent performance.  The 
experience was great, and my level of expertise regarding high voltage and 
resonant transformer design is far greater now than it was before.

Best Regards,

Karl