RE: Quick toriod question...

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

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


Original poster: "Lau, Gary by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <
Gary.Lau-at-compaq-dot-com> 

>This thread raises another question in my mind.   It appears that most 
>home-made toroids use aluminum foil tape as the conductive surface.  But 
>even though the individual strips overlap each other, the adhesive is not 
>conductive, and an Ohm meter will indicate that they do not in most cases 
>connect to each other.  Perhaps the thinking is that when we're looking at 
>100's of kV, a thin layer of goo is probably not going to put up much of a 
>fight before breaking down.  
.........................................<cut> 

>Back to my question - I'm wondering, am I the only person to worry about 
>connections between the tape strips?  How do others deal with this? 

>Gary Lau 
>Waltham, MA USA 

Gary, 
You are not alone in the universe. It intrigues me too. It does seem that 
there would be inefficiencies (losses) in a toroid made of small "Al & goo 
capacitors". Perhaps this is partially compensated for in reduced eddy 
currents vis a vis a solid toroid. I have been trying to visualize a toroid 
wound from a continuous strip of tape resulting in a helical coil instead of 
a solid toroid, or one made from a continuous Cu or Al strap. I have thought 
that perhaps there would be an advantage to a double helix toroid (a la DNA) 
or a Mobius-strip wound toroid. I'm afraid that for me, doing the math for 
these would result in synaptic burnout, but it's on my post-holiday push-down 
stack of things to cut and try, along with counterpoise false grounds etc. 

Peace Pax Mir Shalom Salaam Paz Djambo of the Season to all 

Matt Deming