Re: lots of questions??

To: "'Tesla List'" <tesla-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com>
Subject: Re: lots of questions??
From: Tesla List <tesla-at-stic-dot-net>
Date: Tue, 18 Nov 1997 22:42:37 -0600
Approved: tesla-at-stic-dot-net

From: 	Alfred A. Skrocki[SMTP:alfred.skrocki-at-cybernetworking-dot-com]
Sent: 	Tuesday, November 18, 1997 1:47 AM
To: 	Tesla List
Subject: 	Re: lots of questions??

On Tuesday, November 18, 1997 8:56 AM Bert Hickman
[SMTP:bert.hickman-at-aquila-dot-com] wrote;

> > How exspensive is the equipment  used in measuring tesla coils? hv meters
> > and capacitors?
> 
> If you get the equipment used at Hamfests, they can be relatively
> inexpensive. A signal generator, frequency counter, RLC meter, and an
> oscilloscope all come in handy. Look for a vaccum-tube type scope, since
> the newer solid state versions are not as robust when used around Tesla
> Coils...

Also look for places that sell surplus electronic equipment, these places 
are typicaly run by HAMs and tend to cater to HAMs. Sometimes they can be 
found in the Yellow pages (phone book) but more often you hear of them by 
word of mouth from HAMs and other electronics hobbiests, when you do 
find them more times than not they only open up once or twice a week, 
and the equipment tends to be oldish like mostly tube driven and 
consequentialy is HUGE and consumes lots of power but they get the job done 
and can take a good beating and come back kicking! I've gotten many an 
oscilloscope from places like these and typicaly for $10 to $25 for working 
units with specs ranging from 5 MHz analog scopes up to D.C to 100 Mhz dual
trace with trigered sweep and delay! I got a monster events counter/ 
frequency meter once for $15 and it worked up to 50 MHz! not bad for an old 
tube driven monster. You can also build a lot of your test equipment from 
plans in back issues of Popular Electronics and Electronics Now (formerly 
Radio Electronics), there are even books devoted to building your own test 
equipment. I built a digital capacitance meter once (measured from 1 pfd. 
to 9999 ufd. and occupied a space of less than 6 inches x 6 about 2 inches 
high) from one of those articles, cost me about $20 in parts (I already had 
most of the parts salvaged from broken electronics out of the trash and 
from surplus stores and swap meets).

                               Sincerely

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                           Alfred A. Skrocki
                   Alfred.Skrocki-at-CyberNetworking-dot-com
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