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Re: 1959 Electricity for Boys article

At 06:23 AM 3/17/99 -0700, you wrote:
>Original Poster: "Matthew Shaffer" <dfive10-at-hotmail-dot-com> 
>
>
>>Original Poster: ginger <stephen_crawshaw-at-tesla94.freeserve.co.uk> 
>>
>>Hi all
>>
>>Sorry if this is a repetition, but I've been off the list for a >little 
>while..... Anyway, I found a cool website with "Kitchen >Experiments" 
>for kids, amongst which was a Tesla Coil (?!). Its from >a 1959 article 
>in "Electricity for Boys" (US). Check it out.
>>
>>http://freeweb.pdq-dot-net/headstrong/ind2.htm
>>
>>Cheers
>>
>>Steve
>>
>
>Hey,
>
>I built the coil described in the article.  The coil itself looks quite 
>"midevil", and is a beauty to behold.  I made the supports for the coil 
>out of clear plex, which may or may not look better than the wood that 
>the article calls for.  I also tried to build the primairy transformer 
>that is included in the plans (a disruptor style inductor), but I lost 
>patience with it after winding fourty layers or so of the secondairy 
>(which is 150 total layers of 250 turns each of #34 wire), which is a 
>shame, because I think the inductor would be almost as neat as the coil.  
>I finally just got a NST to do the job of the primairy.  The coil is not 
>a great performer in my opinion, but i have not had a chance to tinker 
>with it a whole lot so it may just be way out of tune.
>
>For performance, I would recomend a monopolar coil, but I must admit 
>that this bipolar sure does look good even just sitting there doing 
>nothing.
>
>FWIW,
>Matthew Shaffer, Raleigh NC
>
>
>Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail-dot-com
>
>
I built one too when I was in Junior High School.  Well, a fairly good copy
anyway.  I also used plexiglass for the primary support and a scrap of PVC
pipe for the secondary form instead of the "mailing tube" called for in the
book.  I was unwilling to build the induction coil power supply, so I
substitued a conventional three-terminal car ignition coil & disrupter
circuit.  The little coil was a poor performer, but it did produce nice
brush discharges at each end as well as 3" sparks to metal objects.  It
also made a neat plasma globe driver by attracting the sparks to the base
of a hand-held clear glass lightbulb.

Greg