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Re: Cold Weather Performance...
Tesla List wrote:
>
> >From bert.hickman-at-aquila-dot-comMon Nov 4 21:59:10 1996
> Date: Mon, 04 Nov 1996 18:47:35 -0800
> From: Bert Hickman <bert.hickman-at-aquila-dot-com>
> To: tesla-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com
> Subject: Cold Weather Performance...
>
> All,
>
> Has anyone else noticed any significant performance improvement
> with colder weather on Tesla Coils? I know VDG's love winter. My 10"
> coil is in an unheated porch, and temperatures are now getting into the
> 20's and 30's in the evening. I've noticed that my coil now seems to run
> significantly better now than during warmer weather (better breakout,
> longer and louder streamers...).
>
> I suspect part of it has to do with the air being dryer, and the maybe
> the PVC form is less "leaky". The gaps also seem to be firing at a
> higher voltage now, so maybe this is part of it. I also had to tweak my
> tuning a bit, so I think my homemade caps drifted a little.
>
> Asking those with experience, does this mean it'll work _really_ well at
> -25 degrees?? Hmm.. maybe I need to move to a more northerly
> climate!...! :^)
>
> Safe sparkin' to ya!
>
> -- Bert --
Bert,
Early on, (circa 1990) we did a series of tests and found that humidity
gave a very subtle but noticable edge on the performance of a TC when it
was low. (Winter is best). Oddly, we also correlated barometric pressure
and during a record low one year with the barometer as low as it has been
in years, rain pouring outside like crazy, and 100% humidity, the coil
performed masterfully! (might have been improved ground) The ideal would
probably be low humidity and low pressure (rare combo). Temperature made
virtually no difference due to skewing by the other two variables. (at
least as far as our records showed.)
Richard Hull, TCBOR