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Re: Help PLEASE! So close.. and yet...
Hi Yuri,
> Original Poster: "Yuri Markov" <wmondale-at-hotmail-dot-com>
>
> Well, I fired up my "not shooting for anything glorious" coil for the
> first time. I had a problem. The transformer, capacitor, spark gap,
> and whole tank circuit work perfectly. Real nice, cool sounding
> sparks in the gap, everything perfect. Only one slight detail - the
> secondary coil and discharge terminal did nothing. Absolutely
> nothing. I tried grounding the bottom to a well, and then directly to
> the house ground, to no avail. In case it helps: The power supply is
> 7500 volts at 30 milliamps(that's 220 watts). The capacitor is a
> leydan jar of an unknown capacitance. The primary is about five turns
> of really big fat copper stuff. As I said, that all works fine. The
> secondary is 30 AWG enamled magnet wire (the really thin red stuff -
> it was all I had) wound about 3/4 the height of a thin untreated
> cardbord wrapping paper tube (2 inches diameter). A softball wrapped
> nice and smoothly in aluminum serves as the discharge terminal. What
> is wrong? Is the cardboard conducting all the RF? Is the wire fatally
> thin? Help, please!
Even thin wire should work to some degree. I would say your biggest
problem is that the primary is not tuned to the secondary. The
circuits have to vibrate in symapthy to allow energy from the primary
capacitor to end up in the secondary. Somehow, you are going to have
to calculate the capacitance of your Leyden jar. If you post the
specs of your coil to the list (things like secondary height primary
type, diameter and height are missing), we should be able to
calculate the frequency your secondary will resonate at and from
there find out what you need to do to the primary.
Don't be discouraged. We've all been there.
Malcolm