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Re: spark gap


Naw Ralph!,  It's beautiful!  Trust me ;-))

I cut a bunch of 1x3 inch paper strips on a paper cutter.  I used the "HP
Bright White" inkjet paper that is 0.0044 inches thick.  I set each
cylinder down on the wood base with epoxy between the cylinders and the
wood.  I used a few slips of the paper between the cylinder to space them
apart.  Once the epoxy has set, I simply pull out the slips of paper
leaving a perfectly gaped (parallel) space between the pipe section.  See:

http://www.peakpeak-dot-com/~terryf/tesla/misc/terrygap.jpg

This gap is sort of disposable but mine has lasted for years with an
occasional forcing things in the gaps to clear shorts.  It really does arc
in the center sections and not at the pipe ends.  It can run 1kW for a
while and much more with fan cooling.  Finn used it for his coil with much
better forced cooling as shown at:

http://home5.inet.tele.dk/f-hammer/tesla/primary/primary.htm

See my experimental gap at:

http://users.better-dot-org/tfritz/varigap.jpg

I just used one, two, three,... slips of paper between each section as a
simple test part.  The paper slips were left in until the epoxy set and
then removed to leave a perfectly spaced and parallel surface for arcing.
It took about 30 minutes to make...

I would be happy to send it to you if you shoot me your snail mail address.
 Then you could compare it and see what's up with all this...

There is a possibility that the taper a pipe cutter leaves and the sanding
of the edges is not only "nice", but extremely critical which may account
for your problems...

Cheers,

	Terry
	terrellf-at-uswest-dot-net




At 08:25 PM 02/11/2000 -0500, you wrote:

>Ugh! Very inelegant. Glooed to what? I tried something like that with shims 
>cut from a Tropicana OJ
>jug. You don't leave the paper in there, do you? All the sparks come off the 
>circular face.
>None from the cylinder walls.????? Please see posting to Gary Lau.
>Thanks.
>
>Cheers,
>Ralph Zekelman
>