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Re: New Coil/First Run (15 1/4" dia)

Subject:  Re: New Coil/First Run (15 1/4" dia)
  Date:   Mon, 28 Apr 1997 15:39:14 -0500
  From:  "Robert W. Stephens" <rwstephens-at-headwaters-dot-com>
    To:   Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>

> 
> Hello All:
>         Last night I was finally able to set up and put power to my
> newest
> coil.  This is the one with the 15 1/4" dia. secondary with a 56" long
> winding of #15 wire (motor magnet wire comes in 1/2 size steps and odd
> numbers too).  The toroid is 10 1/2" x 56" and I attached a breakout
> bump during assembly.  Well, things went O.K. at first.  I did video
> tape it in order to slowly examine things later and that will help.  As
> I ran up the autotransformer I was expecting to hear the spark gap and
> then with a bit more input voltage achieve breakout on the toroid.  As
> soon as I heard the gap fire within a split second 6-8 foot sparks shot
> out of the breakout bump on the toroid.  There was also quite a bit of
> light coming up from beneath the primary where I house the spark gap,
> more than I recall from when I ran just the one .025 CP cap.  Oh, I
> better mention I had my new Plastic Capacitiors .05 and the older .025
> CP cap in parallel.  The light had me watching since it really reflected
> off the bottom of the aluminum foil covered toroid.  Well, within about
> 20 seconds I apparently popped the fuse on the circuit for the rotary
> motor and it started to wind down with an interesting display of how
> higher break rates promote better spark! I did use a tach to set the
> rotary at a break rate of 360 bps for this first run. Today I'll be
> checking out the details of the short run and then try again.  I watched
> the video, in some sections frame by frame and I didn't see any clear
> evidence of any "unplanned" arcing.  The light coming up from the vacuum
> and rotary gaps did however sort of mask things abit so it's really way
> too soon to know if the coupling and other items are O.K. or not.  The
> few sparks that did occur were dramatically more intense with this
> bigger coil when compared to my 8" dia secondary coil from last year. 
> The final resonant frequency turned out ot be 65 Khz on this new coil,
> just for information.  I hope that within about one hour today I'll have
> things ready for another test run, even though rain is predicted, I'll
> at least get it ready for today or tomorrow!
> 
> Chuck Curran
> Cedarburg, WI
> 
 
Chuck,

Congratulations on getting your coil to the complete but 
un-fine-tuned stage.  It is always gratifying to see a coil system go 
well on first light!  Now comes the contemplative tuning work and 
possibly modifications which have the possibility of making your new
coil
a real performer.  Go to it Man!  This is probably the most exciting 
stage in a coil project, especially a large one like your's. : )

Please keep us informed of progress.

Putting the word in for you for some apparently soon needed extra space
in
coiling heaven,
rwstephens