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First Tesla Coil hints?


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From:  Jeff Corr [SMTP:corr-at-enid-dot-com]
Sent:  Friday, February 20, 1998 4:12 PM
To:  Tesla List
Subject:  Re: First Tesla Coil hints?

>4" x 14" secondary, 24 gauge wire


Not by any means long enough.  Go for a 4"x20" at least, 22"
or so preferable.

>Standard spark gap, 2 1" metal spheres (metal drawer knobs)


As you probably know, multiple gaps help ALOT, I can't emphasize
exactly HOW much they help.

>Bottle capacitors (read on)  6 turns 1/4" copper tube conical primary


Most of my coils have at least 15 turns on the primary, although if
you are going to use a 14" secondary, this would probably be ok.

>I think everything is pretty much in order.  I haven't finished assembling


I'm 18, and you? :-)

>deinitely make?  I chose a conical primary because I've read that they're


I have personally found inclined to be the best as well.  I currently use a
15 degree primary for my 6", but 20 degrees is great too, better in fact
I would think.

>computer program, the capacitance is about right for my power supply (4.3
>nF, DL claims).  Actually, I think I remember 5 bottles being a little
>closer (3.7 nF), but my memory may be off.  My biggest worry, though, is
>the voltage limit.  Bottles that are certainly not thicker than 1/4" don't
>seem to be able to contain 15 kv, if you go straight from the tables.  Or
>does the salt water offset this?  Comments? By the way, I got the
>instructions for the caps from this address:


As for the actual value, you can calculate it, but you will never get the
same
value as the actual value.  For 15kv, 30ma you need about .0053uf of
capacitance.
Your best bet would be to measure this with a cheap picometer to get the
exact value.

As for the cap, don't worry.  I used the EXACT same plans when building my
first salt water capacitors.  They work well, although they will fail
eventually
like any other capacitor if you leave out the oil.  I ran my bottle caps for
about
20 minutes nonstop once and they kept going.

>running a parallel gap and series cap, or a parallel cap and a series gap.
>Any advice, or does it really matter too much on a first coil?  I'm not


You want to put your capacitors in series with the primary, and have the
spark gap in parrallel with the transformer.  This is safest on your neon
transformers.  As you've probably heard, they aren't really made with Tesla
coil use in mind.

Well good luck!