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South Fla. Coiler (fwd)
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From: c604313-at-showme.missouri.edu [SMTP:c604313-at-showme.missouri.edu]
Sent: Thursday, May 28, 1998 5:43 AM
To: Tesla List
Subject: Re: South Fla. Coiler (fwd)
On Sun, 24 May 1998, Tesla List wrote:
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Sun, 24 May 1998 00:19:01 EDT
> From: DC8man2 <DC8man2-at-aol-dot-com>
> To: Tesla List <Tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
> Subject: South Fla. Coiler
>
> Greetings to All My son Dan and I are interested building a working Coil. So
> far we have built a very nice one, but it smoked the NST. before it sparked.
> so we would like to fine a good set of plans that work and anyone in this area
> who may be interested in this too. (Preferably someone with a working Tesla
> Coil)
>
> Thanks to all
> Bill
>
>
I smoked about a half a dozen neons before I stuck a variac in front.
since then I have yet to kill a transformer! To me, variacs have become
required equipment for tesla coils. Turning coils on and off with a
switch is equivalent to sending a spike to the circuit. It feels better to
me to raise the power gradually to these terrible machines especially for
first time firings of new coils in order to put them in tune. You want
the coil to dissipate it's energy in the form of sparks from the toroid and
it can only do this if it is in tune. otherwise, the energy is going to go
elsewhere i.e. through the safety gaps or possibly through the transformer.
you'll notice that safety gaps on well tuned coils fire only intermitantly
that's because the energy is being radiated out from the top.
Also check your primary gap, for my 15,000 volt trans the gap is set to
0.3 inch. I could easily widen the gap and store more energy in my caps
and the gap would still fire, but it would also probably kill a
transformer also. So check your gap spacing.
good luck,
Bert S.