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Re: Beating a Dead Horse - Neons
Tesla List wrote:
>
> >From jgore-at-cyberramp-dot-netSun Nov 3 21:42:27 1996
> Date: Sat, 2 Nov 1996 01:15:02 +0000
> From: jgore-at-cyberramp-dot-net
> To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
> Subject: Beating a Dead Horse - Neons
>
> I think I'm more confused now than I ever was about protecting my
> neon transformers. It's a big deal to me because I only have 5 left
> and don't want to fry them. I've seen a certain person in Fort Worth
> go through many of them (30 over the course of two years), sometimes 2-3 at a time ;-)
> I'm sure I didn't understand all the Spice simulations, but I'm
> more interested in what people have actually done anyways. I'd hate to
> fry a neon based on theory, I simply can't afford the loss (i.e. no
> money). So heres the deal:
> If you have ever run a Tesla Coil with neons then please tell me
> exactly what you used to protect it, with as much detail as
> possible. Saying,"two chokes and one bypass cap", doesn't help much.
> Here's my setup, which got two neons fried:
>
> I had a safety gap which fired intermitently to ground (a bolt
> attached to each leg of the neon output with a center bolt to ground,
> ---- | ---- ). After that came a 3 inch toroid choke on each
> leg with about 10 inches of 18 gauge wire on each. (not enough I'm told). For a safety cap I
> had 5 small doorknob caps which screwed together and were attached across the
> neon outputs (series). Each one says,"2500 MMFD - 5KVAC" (I'm really not sure what
> MMFD means. I'm used to mfd and pf. Don't laugh, my major is psychology not
> electronics ;-)
>
> So there you have it. A recipe for burning up a neon! Anyone have a
> better recipe?
Unfortunately, there's no magic formula for keeping your neons alive.
Blocking the VHF junk coming from the sparkgap certainly helps, but
you'll probably need more inductance to be effective. Use 60 MA
transformers if you can get them - they're built more robustly and the
wire's not nearly as fragile. Finally, don't open the primary gaps too
widely.
The best bet is to find a source of free or cheap neons and reconcile
yourself to the fact that they're gonna' die sooner or later... Much
sooner if you really start pushing them with wider gaps or if your tank
caps are sized so that you get 60 Hz resonance.
-- Bert --