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Peak cap voltage, was 12kV, 30ma TC specs, 42" spark




From: 	Malcolm Watts[SMTP:MALCOLM-at-directorate.wnp.ac.nz]
Sent: 	Sunday, September 21, 1997 3:23 PM
To: 	tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: 	Re: Peak cap voltage, was 12kV, 30ma TC specs, 42" spark

Hello John, all,
                  Well, my time has come.....
 
> From:   FutureT-at-aol-dot-com[SMTP:FutureT-at-aol-dot-com]
> Sent:   Saturday, September 20, 1997 10:26 AM
> To:     tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
> Subject:    Re: Peak cap voltage, was 12kV, 30ma TC specs, 42" spark
> 
> > Jason, all,
> >                I paid a visit to a local neon sign company yesterday 
> > and had a chat about transformer ratings. I am assured that going 
> > beyond the peak o/c output voltage is definitely asking for a 
> > premature transformer failure (I haven't killed one yet in order to 
> > find out :) 
>   >>
> 
> Malcolm, all,
> 
> I wonder how knowledgeable neon shop workers would be about
> over-volting neon trannies?  It doesn't seem they would have
> a lot of experience with this sort of thing.  It will be interesting to
> see how long my 12kV trannie lasts while charging the cap to
> 32kV.  I'll report from time to time on how it's faring, and if any
> failures occur.
> 
> John Freau

I killed my first neon this weekend and it wasn't opening the gap too 
wide that did it either although I was pushing it a bit. Ironically, 
it was the first and only time I've ever run with a safety gap 
(which was firing with *low* energy at half an inch setting). I cooked 
half a winding (partial short). I've finally discovered the mechanism 
responsible for this. I am going to unpot it (reheating the tar 
didn't work) and may wind something much more robust. That core is 
huge for the amount of work a typical neon actually does.

Malcolm