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first power-up.

Subject: first power-up.
  Date:  Mon, 26 May 1997 01:13:59 -0500 (CDT)
  From:  c604313-at-showme.missouri.edu
    To:  Tesla listserver <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>


    Hello to all,

    It has been a pretty good week for me (Tesla Coil wise). I finally
got around to firing up my new coil a few days ago to tune it. When
all was said and done the coil was hitting 60 inches from a 6.25 X 24
inch secondary. My coil stands 4.5 feet tall and it was sending some
arcs down to the Earth. The arcs that fly off into the air are highly
branching. I get a few solid strikes to the strike rail, but they only
hang on for a second before arcing somewhere else.
    
    My ground rod is a 1 inch diameter copper pipe hammered 7 feet
into the Earth. Above this sits my coil. The bottom of the secondary
is about 18 inches away from the ground rod. This seems to work well.

    Things I have learned:

    Variacs are God's gift to the Tesla Coilers.

    It is hard to tell, but it feels as though the coil tunes
differently
depending upon weather my toroid (7 X 25) has a breakout point on it
or not. Am I hallucinating about this?

    Hook up wire in the primary is made of 5/16 copper tubing and 
10 Gauge stranded copper wire. After a few minutes of full power,
the 10 Gauge wire felt warm to the touch everything else stayed
cool. My spark gap, 5 gaps set a total of .25 inch apart w/ forced
air, was very warm, but not hot. Once tune was found I replaced the
wire with 5/16 copper tubing, but have not yet tested this change.
Even though 10 Gauge wire is fat, it acted as resistance in the
primary circuit.

    The arcs coming off the top of the toroid are much louder than
the sparks made in the spark gap. A neighbor from 7 houses down heard
the noise and came lookin'. Other neighbors looked on from there back
yards and seemed to enjoy the show.

    I'm planning on watering down the ground right around the coil
to see if it will make more strikes to Earth.

    I'm using an equidrive setup with two .05 uf Caps, w/ 9.5 turns
on the primary, and a power supply of 15,000 v, 150 ma --
(three 15,30's and one 15,60 all of different brands). My variac was
turned to 110 volts out. I will turn it up to 120 volts next time :)

    I hope to take pictures soon!
                                      Teslaing in Missouri,
                                      -- Bert S.