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GNATS meeting, and harmony/synergy

Subject: 
        GNATS meeting, and harmony/synergy
  Date: 
        Sun, 16 Mar 1997 22:09:47 -0700 (MST)
  From: 
        Chip Atkinson <chip-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com>
    To: 
        tesla-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com


Greetings all,

Wow!  I can finally write something about my day's activities, rather
than
list stuff or something I did ages ago!

Today I had a little meeting of GNATS (Greater Niwot Area Tesla
Society).
Jeff Detweiler from the list and Bill Williams, another TC enthusiast,
visited for a little TC action.  

As you may remember, a while back I popped my rolled 0.0177uF cap for my
4" coil. I then switched to my 0.025 CP cap for a run or two, but then
stopped using it because the garage was too cold.  

Today we were trying to get the 4" coil running with the 0.025uF cap.
While the coil seemed to be somewhat in tune, I was getting big flaming
power arcs on the rotary gap that were about 2" long.  This was odd and
I
tried to quench the arcs by putting in another gap.  I put in my air
blast
gap, and ran it at about 40 psi.  This should quench a forest fire, but
in
my case did very little.  I dinked around with the spacing of various
gap parts, the rotary and the air blast.  The best setting allowed me to
produce fairly decent streamers, but there was something still obviously
wrong.  The 4" coil just did not sound correct, and wouldn't run
smoothly.
I also noticed that there were _no_ sparks up and down the length of the
secondary, which indicated to me that it was tuned at the proper
frequency
and not at some odd harmonic.

Frustrated and puzzled, Jeff and I pondered what the heck could be going
on, and came up with no real answer. (Bill had left by then).

Since I had the 6" coil that I wound this winter (remember the cracking
of
the coated coil in the cold?), I let Jeff talk me into trying it, so he
and I went about setting the thing up.  We used a small 12x3 toroid for
ease of tuning, and then went to the large toroid.  Interestingly, the
6"
coil with the small toroid required no tune adjustment from the 4" coil
with the large toroid.  The results were amazing.  The flaming was gone
from the rotary gap and everything seemed to work very well.  The only
difference was the secondary coil.  The primary, wiring, and capacitor
were the same as on the 4" coil.

After thinking about it a small amount, it appears that the 0.025 cap is
just too big for the 4" coil setup, but is just right for the 6" coil.
Although I do believe that I had the 4" coil tuned properly, it was very
interesting that the larger capacitor produced a much rougher operation.

Any ideas or suggestions?  

Chip

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
 Chip Atkinson 
 http://bhs.broo.k12.wv.us/homepage/chip/info.htm
 --- Tighten it 'till it strips and back off half a turn ---
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