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Re: Neon Power Supplies

Hi all.  In recent months I have not done much coiling, but I did
manage to get 
a second cap rolling and "aged".  I am running the two in series now.
They are about .018 uf each.  I now need about 70vac into my 120ma
worth of neons to charge the caps to fire and I have tuned at the 10th
turn with my 4.5 x 21" toroid.  I am going to try my 4.5 x 24" toroid
as soon as I can get it out of storage.  I am able to fire at work
right now but I don't have all my toys there.

>Forth, use a heavy ferrite toroid RF choke in series with the
>line to the tank circuit. I am becomming convinced listening to
>comments and conversations out here that the RF chokes are being
>ignored. It seems that it is difficult to make these chokes have
>too much inductance, and the tendency is to make them too light.
>For the novices out there who are learning the ins and outs of
>tuning, coupling, toroid loading etc., these chokes are really
>going to add life to your neon power supply if you wind enough
>inductance into them and use them.
>

Richard, I have the full protection circuit you describe. I got the
specs from your video.  I have been setting the safety gap to where it
fires every few seconds or so.  It is about 1/4" right now.  Is there
a maximum gap beyond which the neons will not be safe? 

Also after a few minutes of firing, the chokes are pretty warm. 
Nothing else in the protection circuit is.  Just the choke coils.  The
wires running to them are cool.  They are 14 turns of #12 stranded on
2" x 1"  ferrite cores.  Is this a problem?

I'm getting up to 40" arcs right now. (4 x 24", #22 wire).  I want to
get that larger toroid on there and see what happens.  I can't wait to
get my new commercial caps on this thing.

Happy Holidays,


Mark R. Napier
napier-at-cats.ucsc.edu