RE: Primary > secondary distance?

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Lau, Gary" <Gary.Lau-at-compaq-dot-com> 

Hi Simon:

The only down side to a larger-than-needed pri-sec clearance is that the
coupling will be lower.  Losses are lower when the coupling is higher
(though quenching is worse, and the tradeoff between losses and quenching
are not clear) and you generally strive for the highest coupling before
racing sparks occur on the surface of your secondary.  If you are able to
lower the secondary further to compensate, there will be no problem.

Regards, Gary Lau
Waltham, MA USA

>Original poster: "Simon Yorkston" <quantumx-at-mail.ozemail-dot-com.au> 
>
>Hey all [again]
>I get the feeling that I should concatenate all my frequent posts into
>one.. :)
>
>Anyway, I've been looking at pics of other people's coils, and noticed that
>the distance from the primary [inner turn] to the secondary is only about
>one to one and a half inches. On my coil, this distance is about 2 or 2 1/4
>inches.. this won't affect the performace [too much?] will it - or is it
>not that important?
>
>The only way to fix this is to rewind the primary- it wouldn't take THAT
>long, but I really want to have to do that..
>
>Thanks again
.Simon