Re: Big tc article

To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: Big tc article
From: Bert Pool <nikki-at-fastlane-dot-net>
Date: Sun, 4 Aug 1996 11:10:45 -0500 (CDT)
At 12:25 AM 8/3/96 -0600, you wrote:
>>From bmcpeak-at-gte-dot-netFri Aug  2 22:56:17 1996
>Date: Fri, 2 Aug 1996 04:21:28 -0500
>From: Brad McPeak <bmcpeak-at-gte-dot-net>
>To: Tesla List <tesla-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com>
>Subject: Big tc article
>
>
>
>Hello All,
>        I have a reprint of an article that appeared in the July 1964
>        Popular Electronics, called Big
>TC. I am sure someone is familiar with this article.I can post the
>particulars to anyone interested.  The coil uses a plate glass Cap. I
>would like to build this using modern materials and theory, but keep the
>old style flavor. My question is about the cap, could it be built with
>rigid plastic dielectric and be used dry without melting or failing? I
>intend to power it with a 9000- 60ma transformer. could polyethylene be
>used with the glass to decrease disapation? Or how would Epoxy PC boards
>work. I have built several small coils to date but could use some help
>with this.
>

[snip]


>Brad McPeak 
>
>

Brad, this happens to be the first Tesla coil I ever built!

I definitely recommend poly instead of glass in the cap.  I used the 3/16 
double strength glass recommended in the article and I constantly had glass
failures.  The coil was not a particularly good performer.  Using some of
the Two Richard's guidelines, you'd save a lot of time by:

1) Use a 6 or 8 inch diameter form instead of the 4 inch described, make it
   more like a 3:1 length to diamter ratio

2) use a toroid top and retune the coil for max output

3) use a good poly cap, either home made or commercial (CP or NWL)

4) a spiral primary would likely work better than the drum primary

5) absolutely use a multiple cylinder gap instead of the wimpy point gap
   described!

Best of luck,

Bert Pool
nikki-at-faslane-dot-net