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A *Perfect* Tesla Coil

Subject: 
        A *Perfect* Tesla Coil
  Date: 
        Mon, 7 Apr 1997 17:40:08 -0500
  From: 
        "Robert W. Stephens" <rwstephens-at-headwaters-dot-com>
    To: 
        tesla-at-pupman-dot-com


All,

Last night night my neighbour came over for a quick visit and as he 
had not yet seen my new twin system in action I volunteered a 
demonstration.  With the distraction of his visit and a technical
subject we 
were deeply engaged in discussing which has nothing to do with Tesla
coils,
I mechanically plugged in all the plugs to the coil as usual, but forgot
to switch
on the variac which spins up the rotary break.  With both of us donning
our 
silencing earphones I proceeded to crank up the power control variac 
quickly to the 35 amp position which corresponds to some 8 kVA.  Two 
odd things happened.  Firstly, I had to crank the variac higher than 
normal before the activity started.  I didn't really pay attention to 
this.  Secondly when the system did fire it came on with a loud shot 
gun report from the system cap safety gap.  As I instantly saw the 11
foot 
streamers between the towers and hot and heavy action everywhere as 
is now normal, I failed to notice that there was no familiar break
whine.  The 
system must have run for some 30-45 seconds and we were having a 
great old time watching a magnificent show when all of a sudden my 
rotary jumped to a big bright power arc.  It wasn't until this point 
that I noticed consciously that the rotary wheel was not spinning!

I am absolutely amazed.  Here I had the rotary sitting still with 
what amounts to two gaps of about 3/8th of an inch (happenstance 
roulette wheel luck) with a vacuum 
cleaner blower forcing high speed air between the gaps through 
nozzles as is now a common part of my rotary designs.  This is in effect
a two
gap static quench gap!  The system was quenching just fine at 8 KVA 
from an 18,000 volt RMS pole pig type transformer!
This quenching was able to continue until the copper electrodes got 
so hot as to cause premature ignition of the gaps and it was game 
over for any quenching activity.

I have NEVER witnessed a static gap of any kind, especially one with 
as few as two spark gaps in series, quench and operate superbly on a 
T.C. at anything anywhere near even 1/3rd of  8 kVA,... NEVER!

My conclusion is that I have achieved synergy in its most advanced 
and most elusive state with this new Twin TC.  All parameters, on the 
secondary side, the RF primary side, the coupling and most certainly 
so in the power transformer and reactive power control seem to be 
perfectly balanced.  The system quenches all by itself.  Power 
transfer is optimum.  I am first suprised, then amazed and finally, 
as this all sinks in, pleased as hell! : ) 

I now understand that there is good reason for this small system's 
awesome efficient performance.  I haven't yet had a chance to even 
scope the darned thing.  Hey, putting a stethoscope on the thing 
might jinx it!

Try to beat this, and oh BTW, the price just went up! : )

In coiling heaven,
rwstephens