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Tesla questions

Hi Everyone.

Thanks for the response to my questions Jim . Here's a few more that you or
others may be able to answer:

MC>Chip's email about plastic pipes for Tesla coils- how do you bake your
pipe
MC>to drive out moisture- do you use a blow dryer or what?

JO>Nope. The oven set at about 40 - 50 degrees C is Ok. Careful it
JO>doesn't go over that though. Needs about 30 minutes. When you've
JO>finished winding it's important to cover the coil with varnish or
JO>epoxy to seal it completely. I use a lathe on slow speed and pile
JO>the coats on.

Ok thanks for that- I had a look at my oven and I dont think that it is quite
big enough to get my tube in but I should be able to find somebody with a
bigger oven although I'm not sure how I'm going to explain that I want to
bake a plastic pipe!

MC>I cant locate any aluminium flashing over here but I can get copper
flashing

JO>I use Al cooking foil, the heaviest stuff. It works well.

Do you have any problem with the aluminium foil being too flexible i.e having
crinkles developing in the foil which may cause sharp points which may cause
the capacitor to break down? (sorry about the convuluted sentence!)

MC>Looking at your coil in the video it seems to be about 24 inches high but
I'
MC>not sure of that or what kind of wire you used to wind it or how many
turns
MC>you wound. Also what is the total length of the 6 inch plastic pipe
MC>(including the unwound length)?

JO>You really need to run TESLAC don't you ? That will give you a
JO>wealth of data to start with. I've asked Mark if he can do a MAC
JO>compile for you.

Thanks for doing that- much appreciated.

MC>Also in a posting you put on fidonet
MC>about making polythene capacitors written by Bert Pool he mentions that it
i
MC>much better to use multiple polythene sheets to prevent breakdown in case
of
MC>a bad patch on the polythene. I notice that in one of your postings you
say
MC>that multiple sheets affect the efficiency of the capacitor. Do you think
MC>that I should just use a single or multiple sheets if I want to get spark
MC>like in your video?

JO>In my opinion if the poly is thick enough, then 2 layers are
JO>un-necessary. You need to use 60 mils or about 1.5 mm thick for
JO>12 KV. Remember it's dipped in oil as well, so the oil can become
JO>the di-electric too if there's any gaps.

Jim- where abouts do you get your polythene from? I've looked in hardware
shops but the polythene they sell there is only 125 microns thick and I need
2.3 mm thick (90 mil) polythene to take the 15 kV from my neons.

Thanks for the time you have taken to answer my questions. Construction on my
new Tesla coil is going well. I have made four capacitor tanks as described
in Richard Quicks postings and I have just located a good source of
transformer oil and wire for the secondary. ( I have been told to heat the
transformer oil before using it to drive off any absorbed water in it). At
the moment I am looking for flexible tubing to make the toroid.  

Best Regards,
Mark




-- Mark
       _/_/_/   _/_/_/_/       Mark Conway
      _/    _/    _/          Deep Thought BBS, Auckland, New Zealand
     _/    _/    _/          A FirstClass(tm) Macintosh GUI BBS
    _/_/_/      _/          Internet: mconway-at-deepthnk.kiwi.gen.nz