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Re: Toroid Question (fwd)



Subject:       Re: Toroid Question (fwd)
       Date:   Fri, 2 May 1997 18:53:30 +1200
       From:  "Malcolm Watts" <MALCOLM-at-directorate.wnp.ac.nz>
Organization:  Wellington Polytechnic, NZ
         To:   tesla-at-pupman-dot-com


Hi Alfred, all,
                I wrote a program to calculate the optimum former h/d 
ratio for a given length of wire. Method: start with a length of wire 
and h/d = 50, then increase d as l is decreased. The answer the 
program gave me was just under 0.5. Not great for coiling except with 
a gigantic coil because of the height. Not the same as maximum Q 
(without terminal) either. That turned out to be h/d=1, confirmed by 
measurement.

Malcolm

<snip>
> BTW the coil you are working on is not exactly the best design, the 
> Length/Diameter ratio is too high! This coil has an L/D ratio of 6,
> you shouldn't use anything larger than 4 and preferably it should be 
> around 3. If you look at all of Dr. Tesla's coils they are barrel 
> shaped this is in part due to the fact that the input to output ratio 
> of a Tesla Coil is determined by;
> 
>         Voutput = Vprimary X SQRT(Lsecondary/Lprimary)
> 
> consequently we want as large an inductance in the secondary as 
> possible and it turns out that the optimum L/D ratio for maximum 
> inductance for any given length of wire is roughly 3. The primary you 
> stipulated of 12 turns is also a bit high, referring to the input to
> output ratio given above it can be seen that the maximum output will 
> require as small an inductance as possible on the primary. I have 
> found it best to keep the number of primary turns to 6 or less, a 
> Tesla coil really dose'nt need much of a primary only enough to 
> transfer the primary circuits energy to the secondary and at 
> frequencies of 100 Khz and above you don't need much more than a turn 
> or so. I couldn't say if your primary capacitance is right or not 
> without knowing the current rating of your transformer to calculate 
> it's output impedance.