Re: Upgrade wire size?

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

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <FutureT-at-aol-dot-com>

In a message dated 12/13/00 11:13:51 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
tesla-at-pupman-dot-com writes:

> Original poster: "Sam Beck by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" 
<Sam-at-
> peterbeck-dot-com>
>  
>   Hello all,
>  
>   I' just got some 28 Ga wire from Mike Waddick last Saturday and I
>  was wondering if I should rewind my 3X12 coil with the new wire in place of
>  the 26 Ga wire.  Is there an estimate for the performance increase?  Or
>  should I even bother rewinding at all?  I am already pulling 13-15" arcs
>  off of it.
>  
>   Sam Beck
>  

Sam,

I wouldn't bother.  You may get another inch of spark if you're lucky
using the #28, but where the thin wire really helps is when you go
from let's say 1000 turns to 1600 turns (10% spark length improvement
most likely).   Or from 500 turns to 1000 turns.  If you had # 22 wire
on the coil now, then I'd say it was worth rewinding.  Of course it's 
your choice, and it may perform a little different than what I'm 
suggesting, because every coil is a little different.  #26 is not really
too much different than #28.  Now if your gap quenching is poor, then
even the slight improvement afforded by the #28 wire may help more
than expected, by helping the quenching.  So there are many factors
to consider (as usual).

If you're using a 12/30 NST, or a 15/30 NST, then you could
wind a larger 4" by 24" (or even 6" by 24") secondary using the #28,
then you can get 42" to 45" sparks, using a 120 bps sync gap at
120 bps with an LTR sized cap, and properly sized toroid.  Actually
you can get results almost as good even using a static gap.

JOhn Freau