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Insulated secondary

cc:tesla-at-grendel.objinc-dot-com

Richard,

I wrapped my secondary in saran wrap this weekend (glad wrap actually).  I
put 40 to 50 wraps on it covering from the first winding clear up to the
bottom of the toroid.  It sure looked much better when you could see the bare
coil - but I will say it works.  I now get no discharges breaking out from
the secondary.  I had it running at about 8.2 kva.  This is with the welder
wide open.

I tried the original 14" toroid sitting on top of the 40" toroid and still
had many strikes into the primary which would fire the safety gap and scare
the hell out of me - since I am sitting only a few feet from the safety gap.
 Then I tried the 30" toroid sitting on top of the 40" - same thing.  I
finally ended up running it with a couple of coat hangers laying on top of
the toroids with just the ends sticking out over the edge.  This stops that
problem.

Since I added more toroid surface area, I moved the primary tap up to the 13
turn point.  I believe this lessened the problem with the loud "pops" in the
rotary.  Maybe this is being caused by not being right on tune.  Maybe the
rotary is trying to tell me something.  Since I don't have any equipment, I
have just been tuning for best spark at low power and then cranking it up.
 Is there a chance the tune changes as the power goes up because the ion
cloud gets larger?  I never considered this before.  This would mean a lower
frequency at higher power levels and would need more turns in the primary -
like maybe another 1/4 to 1/2 turn.  What do you think about that?

Winter is coming and I have pretty well packed up all my coiling equipment
for a while.  I think I have squeezed about all I can out of this 6.25"
secondary.  Maybe it is time to start thinking about that new 10" secondary
and a new flat primary.  I think all the rest of my system is good as is - a
new primary & secondary and I'm ready to go.  With 8kva today I am getting
73"+ discharges, at somewhat elevated humidity levels.  What would you guess
the same system would produce with a 10" secondary?

Ed Sonderman