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Re: State finalist in the science fair with a Tesla Coil



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> From: Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
> To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
> Subject: State finalist in the science fair with a Tesla Coil
> Date: Tuesday, March 30, 1999 4:42 PM
> 
> Original Poster: "Kent & Kim Schaffer" <santoken-at-bright-dot-net> 
> 
> Hello all!
>  
> Well, if you can remember several weeks ago I was picking your brains
> concerning my step son's science fair project
<snip>
Well done...
>  
>  
>  
> Anyway, we have several things to accomplish beforehand.  First, he was
told
> that he need to actually turn this into an experiment, which we have had
a
> difficult time in doing.  One of the problems we've had is that how do
you use
> a TC in an experiment?  One of the judges suggested creating a data table
on
> how caps change the effect of a TC.  I guess that the key is a DT (data
> table).  Has anyone crossed this bridge and have any sugggestions?  I
suppose
> we could create a DT on all the trials and errors and all the things we
tried,
> I just thought I would probe your minds for something a little more
dazzling.
>  
> 
Certainly, you should document your trials and errors. The key is
"QUANTITATIVE". I'd do a systematic experiment to quantify the effect of
changing the tuning capacitance and primary inductance.  Change the
inductance (primary tap) in small steps and measure the output of the coil
in some way (Length of spark?). Then, change the capacitance and repeat the
experiment. You'll get a series of data strings, each of which can be
graphed (I'd use a program like Excel to generate a 3-d stacked line chart
of some sort).

And, in classical scientific method way (although your project is more of
an engineering project than a science project, where this isn't as
important), you should have a hypothesis about what's going to happen (i.e.
the product of L*C at max spark length should be the same), which you can
test with the experiments.

You can also come up with some general design advice for future TC
builders: is it better to have a big C and small L or a big L and a small
C.

These experiments shouldn't take long to run, either. A minute or two at
each tap position, so you can collect a bunch of data quickly.

I