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First Tesla Coil hints?


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From:  Scott Cutler [SMTP:spcutler-at-ucdavis.edu]
Sent:  Saturday, February 21, 1998 7:34 AM
To:  tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject:  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.

You're probably right, but I read in several places that I should keep the
diameter to length ratio under 4:1.  Actually, though, the real reason
it's not longer is because I ran out of wire.  BTW, sewing machines make
great winding machines for small coils. 

>>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.

Interesting.  I'll put that on my "to-do" list.

>>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.

Yes, that's about what I figured.  My next coil will probably be about 36"
and have about 15 primary turns.

>I'm 18, and you? :-)
19.  I go to the University of California, Davis, but you probably already
figured that out.  I actually started this in high school, but have put it
off until now for financial and time reasons.

>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.

Cool.  I made the form by bending acrylic; boy, was that a mistake.
Took hours and hours.  Next time I'll use something else.


>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.

Ok.  I found some 40 kv 2.7 uF doorknob capacitors for $16 each.  Two of
these would do the trick.  Would these do well?  Is the price decent?

>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.

Yes, that seems to be the consensus nowadays.

>Well good luck!

Thanks!