Confessions of an EE

To: tesla-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com
Subject: Confessions of an EE
From: Tesla List <tesla-at-stic-dot-net>
Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 22:53:28 -0600
Approved: tesla-at-stic-dot-net
Subject: 
            Confessions of an EE
       Date: 
            Sun, 16 Mar 1997 16:10:55 -0800
       From: 
            Skip Greiner <sgreiner-at-wwnet-dot-com>
Organization: 
            Greiner, Ltd.
         To: 
            tesla list <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>


Hi all but especially new coilers

I should know better but you might gain from my experience. I have been
working at relatively low power on the order of 700 to 2000 watts. I
"play" at the 700 watt level and then try to move up. At 700 watts we
use less than 10A from the mains and at 2kw something on the order of
20A assuming 120v mains.

I put together what appeared to be a pretty impressive 700w TC,
something like 48"(+) discharges and thought the design was worth while
to push to 2kw. Lo and behold I could never get over 54" discharges no
matter what. Being very frustrated I naturally started checking
everything in sight with virtually no solution. By the way I monitor
mains current but not mains voltage. With nothing left to check I
finally got to the mains and guess what? My input voltage to the neon
driver was only around 100v using a rectifier type meter for
measurement. This probably means that the voltage getting to the
capacitor was even less during operation. That's close to 20%
undervoltage......major problem.

Starting from my power distribution panel I rewired everything up to the
neon input. Now the same meter reads 120v at the panel AND at the neon.
Better yet on the first firing the discharges went well over 60" and I
am now doing a major retuning of the whole system.

Moral: Make sure that you are truly delivering full mains voltage to
your input transformer under load. You may be losing a major part of
your discharge length in the feed lines, variac, etc.  to your system.

Skip