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Re: My First Tesla Works!

Subject:  Re: My First Tesla Works!
  Date:   Thu, 12 Jun 1997 10:53:25 +0500
  From:   "Alfred A. Skrocki" <alfred.skrocki-at-cybernetworking-dot-com>
    To:   Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>


On Wed, 11 Jun 1997 18:53:03 -0400 Tom Heiber
<theiber-at-lonet.ca> wrote;

> This IS a Re-Post as it seems it was not recieved by the Tesla List
> Server! with some minor changes :)
> 
> Hey There Guys (and gals) my FIRST Tesla Coil Works.
> After painstakingly long hours of building it It Works!
> 
> WOW!

Congratulations!!!
 
> Well Here are the specs!
> 
> Power Supply: 12KV 60mA Neon Xfmr.
> Spark Gap   : 4 bolts in series, cooled by a cooling fan
> Cap         : Home-Made Salt-Water Caps -at-13.1nF

Replace these with a home made polyethylene cap submerged in oil,
it will have much less losses!

> Primary     : 9 Turns 1/4" copper tubing, tapped at 9 (needs more turns)
> 
> Seconday    : 4"x13.5" 22Gauge, blue PVC pipe
> Toroid      :  4"x30" aluminum duct pipe
> 
> Well. After I have cooled down a bit. Here's my problem.
> 
> About 1/3 way from the bottom of the winding (secondary) I had a breakou
> of corona and it fused about 4-5 turns together. Now, I have no idea why
> this has happened or how to fix it.

You could tru to pick the fused turns out and splice on new wire and 
solder the joint and rewind the issing turns and solder the end and 
the re coat with insulation, this can be tedious at best! Probably 
your best bet is to wind a new secondary.

> Also, all I get from this TC is about 13"-15" sparks. Is this the
> maximum I can get from my Tesla?

A good rule for small coils is one foot of spark per 300 watts of 
power so you should be able to get up to 24 inch sparks using a 
15KV 60a transformer. 

> I have noticed that while operating the coil inside the garage. The
> garage door went wild. I had to unplug it cuz It was getting too weird.

Your radiating all over the electromagnetic spectrum and tripping the 
garage door opener, the only way to stop thais is to put the entire
coil in a Faraday shield.

> BTW. Is the spark gap supposed to be THAT loud? I thought the output
> from the Sec. was more powerfull and would make more noise.

Yup! Their all loud!
 
> Does anyone have any suggestions about my coil for improvement? (except
> the cap)
 
you could use a thicker wire on the secondary like No.20 to further 
reduce your resistive losses, and add several ore yurns onto your 
primary so you have more leway for tunning. Considder a better spark 
gap - perhaps enclosed to reduce the noise. After that you'll 
probably want to but two transforers in parallel to put more power
into the coil and get still bigger sparks, of course you'll have to 
double your capacitance to use the increase in power.

                               Sincerely

                                \\\|///
                              \\  ~ ~  //
                               (  -at- -at-  )
                        -----o00o-(_)-o00o-----
                           Alfred A. Skrocki
                   alfred.skrocki-at-cybernetworking-dot-com
                             .ooo0   0ooo.
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