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Re: [TCML] First (Result Yielding) Light. A Few Questions...
Congratulations on a successful run, Brandon! See comments below...
Brandon Hendershot wrote:
Hi All,
I fired up my coil again a little while ago. I'm very pleased with the
results, no matter the amount of troubleshooting it still desperately
needs... There were a few interesting things and problems I'd like to ask
you all about.
The first thing, is that 'ever persistent' interference being sent back
throughout the house. On the very first run, I was having issues with the
primary arcing over to the secondary. When I shut it off and went back
inside to wait for the caps to bleed out, I noticed that that the jacuzzi
tub was on and my Directv receiver was throwing a message about an invalid
card or something. A reboot fixed that, and the bathtub didn't come back on
after adjusting the primary and secondary coils and running a few more
times.
Are you running an independent ground for the RF portion (secondary
base, safety gap center electrode and case of NST(s) - a separate wire
that connects to separate grounding rod(s)? Your RF ground should not be
connected to your house mains ground at any point in your system. Try to
keep the distance between the coil base and RF ground short - a long RF
ground will result in your additional RF noise and spikes being coupled
into nearby electrical wiring, especially during ground strikes from
your system. It's also possible that you may be picking up radiated EM
energy from your coil. This can be a greater problem if your house is
wired with Romex instead of through grounded metallic conduit. Distance
is your friend - running the coil outside and away from your house
should reduce or eliminate the problem.
On a related note, I noticed a small (static?) charge on the variac casing
when i touched it while cranking the dial. This was while it was running,
not a stored charged I felt later. I was operating from a safe distance of
about 7-8' away, so it shouldn't be picking up a charge off the field, I
don't think... Would some AC line filters help with these, uh, 'results'?
Your body is picking up the coil's RF E-field, causing you to get
"nipped" if you barely touch the variac case or the screw that secures
the knob on the variac. Even though you are beyond the reach of the
sparks, you are still bathed in the coil's E-field. If you hold a
metallic object in your hand, you may even be able to draw small sparks
to a grounded object when your coil is running. You have several
options. You can place a metal screen or series of vertical wires
between you and the coil to block the E-field. Or, you can firmly touch
a grounded object to bleed off the stray voltage. Or you can avoid
lightly touching grounded or large metallic objects while running the coil.
The second thing I'd like to address is the large amount of sparks and
corona I'm getting around the top of the secondary for about 4-6" down. I
added a breakout point, and that hardly changed the results. Won't adding
another topload as well as elevating them a bit away from the secondary
help?
Your topload is too high versus the top of the secondary winding or the
large diameter of the toroid is too small versus the diameter of your
secondary. In either case, lowering your topload so that it is closer to
the top of the secondary winding will fix the problem. Continuing to run
the coil with corona boiling off the top of the winding can damage the
wire's insulation and cause arc tracking of the coil form.
The third and final thing I want to ask you guys about, and possibly related
to the last thing, is the racing sparks I'm getting as I dial the variac up
into the 120-140V zone. That's just bad coupling, right? And wouldn't
raising the secondary coil be the solution?
Yes.
Thanks everybody,
I wouldn't be able to do any this without ya',
Brandon H.
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Good luck and safe coiling to you!
Bert
--
Bert Hickman
Stoneridge Engineering
http://www.capturedlightning.com
+1 630-964-2699
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