[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]
Re: starter coils from scraps (was: microwave transformers)
From: Adam[SMTP:absmith-at-tiac-dot-net]
Sent: Friday, October 31, 1997 4:14 PM
To: Tesla List
Subject: Re: starter coils from scraps (was: microwave transformers)
>No problem, I've used 5 KV for years to drive coils, and I haven't
>seen really bad erosion on my gaps.
>
>The nice thing about coiling is that almost anything can be pressed
>into service, and it'll work. Perhaps not as well as properly sized
>components, but they will work.
I agree, to a big extent. For coils under 500KVA there are a lot of things you can try, and you can get near optimal results with very little money spent. My eighth grade science fair project was my first telsa coil. It was: 16" of #24 magnet wire on 3" id PVC tube, an oil burner transformer, a couple of pyrex?/foil leyden jar type caps and few turns of 1/8" copper tubing for the primary. I had no idea of the theories involved, or the math, and it put out a 3.5" spark, at best.
After my 4 years of EE, and some research into the basic mathematics of the tesla art, I was able to easily get 12" of spark from this coil just by making a decent cap which was the proper size. The moral of this story is: start with the basic equations, and go from there. Good performance is just a matter of getting your homemade parts values' in the right ballpark- enough so to tune the thing.
>In small scale coiling almost anything can be made to work, given
>that you're willing to 'mess around' a bit to find the sweet spot
>of the components you have - Experiment !
Yup, it's all an experiment.
-Adam
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adam Smith
absmith-at-tiac-dot-net
Epoch, Inc. Digital Music Project
www.tiac-dot-net/users/absmith/ Now with MP3! Musik. Macht. Macintosh.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------