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Re: Sad news, and repair question

This may be way too simple but is it possible that when you secured your
tap wire that you did it in a way that caused it to change the
inductance of your primary?  If your tap cable was straight and
perpendicular to the turns of your primary and then when you secured it
you curled it around sort of parallel with your primary turns, I suspect
that would throw off your tuning and could explain the racing arcs and
poor output.

Tesla List wrote:
> 
> Original Poster: "Andy Cleary" <gemware2-at-dreamscape-dot-com>
> 
>         On the night of Oct. 1, I decided to run my small Tesla coil.  I
must say
> that it was performing perhaps the best ever.  I'll explain what then
> happened, in sequence. I ran the coil about 6 times, with perfect results.
> I started to run the coil again, when I noticed arcing on the primary (16
> awg insulated wire) to the tap wire, which was laying on top of the primary.
> I secured the tap wire so it was not touching the primary, and ran the coil
> again.  At this time, the coil worked well, but there was corona coming from
> the tap wire where it had been crimped, that never had happened before.  I
> looked at it, and ran the coil again.  The same thing happened.  I started
> to run the coil again, without adjustment, and for some reason my secondary
> coil had arcs racing up and down it.  I quickly shut it off, raised the
> secondary, and tried it again.  Still more arcing.  I then lowered the
> secondary, and still more arcing.  I then put the secondary where it was
> originally, and ran the coil.   The tank circuit fires OK, but I get a very
> weak discharge, if anything.  I do see some burn marks on the secondary, and
> my question(s) is(are):  Did one of the wires break in my secondary coil?
> If so, is it worth fixing?  Will it work if I try to fix it?  How do you fix
> it properly?  And, why did my coil start acting abnormally?  Thank you in
> advance,
> 
> -Andy
> 
> P.S. I was able to take a couple of pictures before it died, they can be
> seen at
> http://www.geocities-dot-com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/2082/other/tesla.htm
> Unfortunately my friend was using an unfamiliar camera, so they did not turn
> out great...