Re: Plexiglass or PVC -Reply

To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: Plexiglass or PVC -Reply
From: "Reinhard Walter Buchner" <rw.buchner-at-verbund-dot-net> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)
Date: Sat, 01 May 1999 22:47:28 -0600
Approved: twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net
Delivered-To: fixup-tesla-at-pupman-dot-com-at-fixme

Hi Vladi,

>Original Poster: "ROBERT CRESSLER" <59CREROB-at-menasha-dot-com>
>vladi,
>        depends...... if you are talking cosmetics a cat acrylic tube for a
>secondary would look very cool....... however,cost is high if you have to
>purchase,electrical parameters are similar or inferior to PVC (e.g.
>dissipation) so given the choice of these two,i'd go with PVC. there are
>several other alternatives that come to mind; laminated thermoset tubes
>used for telescope making,polyethylene pipe or uhmw PE tube, polystyrene
>tube made from thins ands solvent cemented,Polypropylene
>pipe (can be hard to find).......... if you have additional particulars I can
>ramble on more. let me know
>Robert Cressler


Ah, Robert and his always superb information to just about any
plastic type you can come up with :o)). There is another reason that
springs to mind for NOT using acrylic tubing. If you coat the winding
to keep it in place, you will HAVE to use a coating with low or no
aromatic solvent content. Any acetone or toulene, etc. solvent will
cause minute stress cracks to appear in the acrylic. If you have a
lot of bad luck, the tubing will fall apart if you move it around or
even melt away during the coating process. As to the RF losses of
a former, I think this is exaggerated too much. Even the worst former
shouldn´t have more than 5% total loss. Every other part in a TC will
have higher losses than this (esp. the spark gap).


Coiler greets from germany,
Reinhard