Re: 10 tests and suddenly...RRRAAAATTTTT!!!

To: tesla-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: 10 tests and suddenly...RRRAAAATTTTT!!!
From: Tesla List <tesla-at-stic-dot-net>
Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 01:47:39 -0500
Approved: tesla-at-stic-dot-net
Subject:  Re: 10 tests and suddenly...RRRAAAATTTTT!!!
  Date:   Fri, 16 May 1997 23:18:52 +0500
  From:   "Alfred A. Skrocki" <alfred.skrocki-at-cybernetworking-dot-com>
    To:  Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>


On Thu, 15 May 1997 12:27:12 Eastern Daylight Time Mad Coiler
<ts5815-at-devrycols.edu> wrote;

> Not to bad! I'd like to get 3-4 footers out of my coil. I currently
> have one TC I made (my first one) for about 20$. I use the salt water
> caps. Do you think that the new caps you used made the big difference?
> If they do then maybe I should try something like them rather than my
> salt water caps. Like you stated, I also got little prple bolts all
> around my salt water caps but I easilly suppresed these with about a
> half inch of 10W-30 oil.

Salt water caps may be cheap and easy to build, but their very lossy!
You've seen the losses through coronal leakage and did well at 
decreasing it with the 1/2 inch of oil you mentioned. There is 
also power factor losses that result in heating of the dialectric
which you may or may not notice. The salt water caps are probably
the first thing you should consider upgrading. Upgrade to low leakage
and low power factor losses! I think your best bet for your next cap
would be a home made polyethylene and aluminum foil cap, look at one 
of Richard Quicks designs or any of the other designs floating 
around. Check out: ftp://nic.funet.fi/pub/sci/electrical/tesla
in the misc directory you will find Richard Quick's files all begin
with - RQ .

> My primary caps discharge with enough power to ark weld - my spark
> gap contacts that have been used only for about 3 weeks are severly
> burn't red and brown.

This sounds like the second thing you should upgrade is your spark 
gap! What kind of gap(s) are you using? It sounds like you may be 
using a single static gap, if so you should switch to multible static
gaps and maybe even add a rotary gap. The multible static gaps will
result in several smaller gaps rather than one larger gap and the 
load will be smaller and shared over the several gaps so the "burn't
red and brown" won't show up! Adding a rotary not only lightens the 
load on the multible gaps but can result in improved perforance 
because your capacitor can end up being discharged more frequently
into the primary. As to what other improvements could be made to your 
coil, I'm not sure, the only other imforation about your coil that 
you provided is that it is 15 inches long and 3.5 inches in diameter.
To help any further I would need to know the gauge of wire and the 
type of insulation the wire on your secondary has, what your are 
using for a discharge electrode for the secondary, what the secondary 
is connected to if anything, what you are using for the primary and
how many turns it has, the actual size of your capacitor, what kind 
of sparkgap you are using and what you are using to provide the High 
Voltage supply. The way the parts are wired together, in other words 
the schematic of your set up.

                               Sincerely

                                \\\|///
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                           Alfred A. Skrocki
                   alfred.skrocki-at-cybernetworking-dot-com
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