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Re: Primary Tune Found
In a message dated 96-08-14 04:52:16 EDT, you write:
<<
Hello All:
Since I'm on vacation I have had some more time to keep working on my
coil tuning. Last night I believe I have succeeded in finding the
primary tap point that works the best. I used the signal generator and
scope and just for fun checked resonance every 1/4 --guess I had too
much free time available! My spark wasn't real long Sunday night but
now with the secondary showing 102 Khz and the primary 95 Khz on Monday
night things were really neat. Power draw dropped while the spark
length really has started to grow in size, apparent power and length.
All I had done on Sunday was pop a 1 amp quick blow fuse in the control
circuit, no damage found anywhere else. Hey, a bigger fuse and away I
went!
I'm running just the welder in series with my pole pig for current
limiting, with no oven elements currently included. Today I hope to
re-read some of my saved postings on the advantages realized when using
the oven elements in parallel with the welder. I could probably cook a
snack too? I had a second used digital meter I put in to replace the
blown one that I was using for voltage to the pole pig primary. Even
with additional by-pass features and the original 30 amp RF filter too,
I blew the second one in about 6 minutes of running. I think I have
clearly proven that digital meters, even if free, are a very poor choice
in Tesla work!
One interesting item that I noticed last night. I am using RG-213 for
my high voltage leads from the pig to the spark gap. At the spark gap I
have taken the grounding braid or outer conductor from both leads and
soldered both to a 1 1/2" braided copper ground strap. This strap is
then connected directly to my system ground and is about 8' long. The
RG-213 is 30' long and is then connected to my filter board at the pole
pig. O.K., what I did was strip back and had about 12" of the coax
ground braid laying out from each high voltage lead and the two ground
braids were laying against each other, but not connected to anything. I
figured since the other end was clearly tied to ground, why do it
again. The majority of the 12" was laying on the driveway. These two
ground leads were arcing, one to the other, with about a 1/2" diameter
ball of blue light. No noise was heard and no damage detected, but it
was a surprise.
Performance is really neat right now but still alot to learn and do. I
had several neighbors over again and I have taken steps to totally
protect them from the system. Sparks appear to be approaching 7 feet
now and are very frequent and last. The strike rail isn't getting hit
real often, which is nice. The 48" toroid seems to have the sparks
going out in a horizontal manner about 60-70% of the time. All sparks
came from one spot at first. I stopped things asnd we found a "sliver"
of aluminum tape that was sticking out about 1". After removing it the
entire toroid O.D. got active and the sparks somewhat bigger too.
Enough for now--any comments or recommendations would be appreciated.
Chuck Curran >>
Chuck,
Sounds like you're having fun. This is what it's all about. All those long
hours of design and construction pay off in long sparks. I also use RG213 to
deliver power to the coil from the pole pig. I have both shields tied
together at the coil and connected to the main RF ground. The other ends are
tied together at the filter board, providing the ground to the safety gap.
Ed Sonderman