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Re: A 4" garage -- GNATS's first meeting

Tesla List wrote:
> 
> >From chip-at-poodle.pupman-dot-comMon Oct 28 22:37:44 1996
> Date: Mon, 28 Oct 1996 22:35:38 -0700 (MST)
> From: Chip Atkinson <chip-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com>
> To: Tesla List <tesla-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com>
> Subject: A 4" garage -- GNATS's first meeting
> 
> Greetings all,
> 
> Last Sunday Dave Burman, Dave Baehr, and I got together in my garage for
> the first meeting of GNATS (Greater Niwot Area Tesla Society).
> 
> The purpose of the meeting was to fire up coils of course.
> I have recently completed my rotary gap and was anxious to test it.
> After a few power cabinet glitches we got electricity to all the
> components and were ready to fire up my 4" coil.
> 
> I fired up the rotary at about 700 breaks per second (12 contacts,
> running at a fixed speed of about 3500 rpm).  As I turned up the power,
> the sound was significantly different from the static gap that I had
> used.  As the static gap starts to fire, it starts out as a popping sound
> and increases in frequency as the voltage is increased.  With the rotary
> gap, the frequency is constant (700 hz?) and increases in volume with the
> increased voltage.  The sound is a robotic growling whine.  As the
> voltage was turned up, the sparks grew longer and longer.  It was
> wonderful.  I didn't measure the length, but I estimate 4' sparks were
> flying for sure.  The sparks were striking the garage door and anything
> with metal that was near.
> 
> Acting on the advice from Dave Burman I had unplugged the garage door
> opener before hand.  (More on this later).
> 
> After firing up my 4" coil, we fired up Dave Burman's 6" coil.  I didn't
> turn up the power too much before the thing was constantly sparking to
> something grounded -- garage door, opener, my coil sitting nearby, etc.
> 
> It was apparent that my garage is not big enough for a 6" coil, but is
> big enough for a 4" one.  That led us to devise a new garage size rating
> system:  the maximum diameter of coil that can work in a garage.  Thus, I
> have a 4" garage.  Perhaps we can put a vaulted ceiling in it to get up
> to 6".
> 
> After running Dave's coil, we plugged in the garage door opener and it
> didn't work which was distressing.  However, Dave mentioned that his
> garage door opener had the same problem and it was the wall switch that
> was bad, and not the opener at all.  It turns out that I had the same
> problem.  To solve it he disconnected one of the wires on the switch and
> just touches it to the contact where the wire was screwed down.  Weird
> circuitry in that little switch.
> 
> Despite my size restrictions, I'm chomping at the bit to start on the new
> 6" coil.
> 
> A word or two about the rotary gap -- I used 1/4-20 brass acorn nuts for
> the moving electrodes and 1/8" tungsten rods for the stationary ones.  I
> did notice a little erosion on the tips of the rods, but nothing
> excessive.  The holders for the rods are turned from aluminum rod about
> 1.5" diameter.  They have a 1/8" hole down the center and are threaded at
> one end with a 1-8 thread.  This allows me to only expose about 1/8" of
> the tungsten rod and provides a large radiating surface to keep them
> cool.
> 
> We took pictures which I'll post oncd they get back.  I'm also going to
> post pictures of the rotary gap, once I get them scanned. (The scanner at
> work is flakey, but one of our list members offered to scan them for me,
> so we'll see.)
> 
> All in all, a great afternoon of coiling.  All I can say is "goodbye
> neons"
> 
> Chip
> 
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=->  Chip Atkinson
>  http://bhs.broo.k12.wv.us/homepage/chip/info.htm
>  --- Everyone is someone else's weirdo. ---
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Chip,

Great!  Nothing compares to a good afternoon of firin' with the guys!  
Lone wolfin' it is really not very satisfying.  I'm glad you found some 
compadres to zap with.  I know Dave Baehr from my correspondence with 
John Plyler.  I can't remember everyone, but I think I met him in 1994 
while at the ITS conference over a hail storm ridden lunch at a Colorado 
Springs Wendy's.  I think it is great that you folks have formed a formal 
group.  Good luck and many feet of spark to ya'.

Richard Hull, TCBOR