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Re: Latest coil - update
Hi John,
> Original Poster: FutureT-at-aol-dot-com
>
> In a message dated 99-09-10 07:57:24 EDT, you write:
>
> << was placed between the transition cone (hey, it sounds better than
> > dishpan) and the dryer-duct toroids. The breakout point on the top
> > toroid was somewhere around 15" above the top winding of the
> > secondary.The racing sparks finally stopped with this setup. But there
> > was still a lot of corona around the secondary, just no sparks.
>
> > But I am only getting 70" sparks now. Lost 10" of spark by doing these
> > things. I wonder if it is worth losing that much spark length?
>
> >Alan
>
> Alan,
>
> I wonder why those changes would reduce the spark length? I
> didn't expect that. It could be that the total secondary and toroid C
> is now just too large for the amount of power, that's my guess.
>
> I suspect that if you built a new secondary that is narrower, maybe
> 8" or 9" wide, but taller at maybe 32" or so, then use the toroid combo,
> it would work well. I say this because when I once used a wide short
> secondary, it both developed racing sparks, and demanded a smaller
> toroid. I suspect that if the power is limited, the total combined
> secondary and topload C shouldn't be too large. (if one is larger, the
> other must be smaller and vice versa).
>
> In general, I found wide short secondaries to be *troublesome*. But
> it's mostly the shortness that causes the real trouble.
I agree. Some of the secondaries I wound years ago were going to
be the best thing since sliced bread. Short and wide, plenty of visual
appeal and a heap of inductance. Well, they are great - for
magnifiers but hopeless for two-coil secondaries. On the other side
there are the unexpected surprises. Possibly my best "small"
secondary is a 6.5" x 32" HDPE coil closewound with about 850t of
0.9mm wire. Inductance is a modest 20mH or so. However, it has
the voltage handling capacity, not too much self-capacitance and
quite a high Q because of the thickness oif the winding. I laugh now
when I think back to the time I wrote this coil off as the worst I had
built because of the higher aspect ratio (worst that is besides the
thin wire 1800 turn job which crammed mH's+ of inductance into no
volume at all).
Regards,
Malcolm