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First year 2000 ozone fix!
In need of some ozone to get the new millenium off to a propper start, Mike
Tucknott and myself got together with one of his medium sized coils (approx
4.5" secondary)for some fun!! ;-)
Initially we got no signs of life from the coil until we diagnosed the RQ
style static gap as being dead, but by bringing a linear copper tube gap out
of retirement, we were rocking and rolling again!
I would like to have said that we were only doing serious experiments with
the coil, but to be honest Mike was itching to try out his recently modified
6" plastic model of a Dr Who Darlek, complete with exterminating electrode!!
:-0
The results were pretty good, with streamers shooting out from the evils
Darlek's gun. Pictures to follow if they came out alright.
On a more serious note, we experimented with a little bit of live tuning.
Normally you have to shut the coil down and then change the primary tap
point and try again. This is what we had to do when we added a small toroid
on top of the existing one but ran into problems when the primary tap cable
was too short to reach round to tap at a half turn. We had just been
discussing how much effect the extra top load was having, and thinking about
raising it out of the E-field of the main toroid, when I suggested we
suspend it from the roof on the end of a long piece of HV support rigging
(string from Mike's Mum's kitchen !!) and change its height while the coil
was live.
With Mike on the variac and me on the string we fired up. It was great! Top
bananna! You could bring the coil in and out of tune really easily, with
the streamers changing length and the gap sound changing too.
Our adjustment range was limited by the wire connecting the two toroids
together. We had to extend it during the experiments and got to the point
where we could swing the top toroid like a pendulum and watch the streamer
shrink and grown in time to the swing. Cool!
We briefly tried it with the connecting wire removed. With the top toroid
now electrically isolated and suspended 3" above the other one, with a
breakout wire hanging off it, we got a bright arc between the two. With the
toroid spinning the arc went around too, but we were now getting
interference on the TV.
We stopped playing when we saw the gap smoke and smelled the burning wood
and epoxy! :-(
A good start to the new year!!
Steve Bell (UK)
steve-at-breakfix.demon.co.uk
http://www.breakfix.demon.co.uk