RE: [TCML] First light but something's still not quite right

["Ken Willison" <kwillison2@xxxxxxx>]

Had same problem wood won't work very long with high voltage. Mount the gap
on plastic.
Ken

-----Original Message-----
From: tesla-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:tesla-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Andrew Nettles
Sent: Friday, April 11, 2008 2:45 PM
To: Tesla Coil Mailing List
Subject: RE: [TCML] First light but something's still not quite right

OK this is a good one.....everyone should get a kick out of this.
 
My rotary gap base is a piece of 1/4" lexan on top of a piece of 3/4" red
oak.  The gap terminals are brass hexrods bolted from underneath,
countersunk into the oak, and bored out to accommodate the tungsten
electrodes.
 
I disconnected the tank circuit, bypassed the filter, and rotated the gap so
it was lined up and should fire.  Powered it up and got nothing....got up
next to it and after several seconds I saw what looked like a smoking wire.
Turned it off and examined the wire and it was fine.  Then it suddenly hit
me - what could be smoking that I couldn't see?  The gap was sitting on a
plywood shelf and as soon as I moved it out of the way, sure enough there
were carbon circles burned into the plywood where the countersunk bolts were
sitting above it.
 
I cut a piece of lexan and shoved it underneath and the coil runs great!I'll
upload some pics as soon as I find my camera.



> From: anettles@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: tesla@xxxxxxxxxx> Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008
16:03:21 -0500> CC: > Subject: [TCML] First light but something's still not
quite right> > I got my 6" coil to fire up yesterday and although I was glad
it worked the first try, I'm still having a problem.> > It only ran for a
few seconds and then quit. I had noticed before when messing with the safety
gap that the GTO wire still leaked a bit even though it was rated for 15kv
and that's what my transformer is rated. So I made sure there was adequate
spacing between those wires and the grounds and then it worked again.....for
a few seconds. The variac & nst test fine.> > I went to set the safety again
and disconnected the tank circuit but didn't disconnect the rest of the
filter. As soon as the safety stopped firing, I'd get a nasty hot arc
between the two rows of capacitors in the Terry filter. So after bonking
myself in the head, I isolated the safety gap and set it. At one setting I
would plug it in and it wouldn't fire 3 out of 4 times and then I'd get a
big arc - not the two little ones between the gaps. I backed it out a little
more until I could plug it in repeatedly and not get that.> > So I have the
wires separated, safety gap set properly...but it still stopped working. It
seems like the hv is getting shorted to ground but I can't see what I've
done wrong. Could it be a problem with the terry filter? The two rows of
caps are separated by about 1-1/2 inches of space....I'm wondering if that's
adequate or if that's the problem. I've ground every solder joint down so
there's no sharp edges.> > My rotary gap seems to be set close enough to
work, but I can't get the coil to run long enough to tune the tap or play
with the motor phase.> > I'd be grateful for some input. And BTW thank you
to all the people on this list who helped me when I needed it - I'm just
about there.> > - Andrew Nettles, Fort
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