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Re: first tesla coil
In a message dated 9/23/99 4:27:24 AM Pacific Daylight Time, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
writes:
>
> Hi this is Chester Lowrey I just built my first tesla coil and here are the
> specs:
>
> powersupply: 12kv 30ma NST
> cap: 2x 5" by 5" plate cap with 60 insulating layers each ten sheets of
4
> MIL polyethylene immersed in mineral oil. uf ??
> sparkgap: 8 coper pipe gaps
> primary: 7 turns 1/4 copper pipe 18" diameter flat pancake
> secondary: 6" by 24" PVC pipe wound with 24gau copper wire
> all conections made with 10gau insulated wire.
>
> from this description what do you think about it's performance? all i can
> currently get is 5 inch sparks at the most. my thoughts are that the
> transformer isn't big enough.
> but would it work better if i use a smaller primary and secondary?
> transformers are preatty hard to obtain when you live in hawaii and are
only
> 15yrs. i just built the cap this weekend and was expecting better results
> than with my 7 bottles but spark gained 1' at the most
>
> well i would greatly apreaciate any help/comments PS. sowrey about
> the spelling hope you dont mind
>
Chester,
It sounds like a good project. I would expect one to two foot sparks with a
30 ma transformer. The coil is probably not in tune. You need to either
measure or calculate the capacitance you have and run some calculations to
see if the current design will allow the primary to be tuned to match the
secondary frequency.
Ed Sonderman