Re: any insulation recomendations for magnet wire

[FutureT-at-aol-dot-com (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)]

In a message dated 7/17/00 6:45:02 PM Pacific Daylight Time, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com 
writes:

> But can I get output to hit the insulation limit of my wire? 
>  Not a show in hell - we're talking about 6MV over a distance 
>  of less than 1m. Cannot be done without winding flashovers. 
>  Generally one finds that the tracking distance required to 
>  prevent a flashover does not adhere linearly to the total 
>  voltage.
>        I bet there are very few if any coils which even come 
>  close to taxing the turn-turn wire insulation. I think your 
>  program should instead be looking at total voltage/total 
>  secondary length.
>  
>  Regards,
>  Malcolm

Malcolm, John,

I agree.  It's only when I've tried running short secondaries at high
powers that the coils fail and arc uncontrollably along the secondaries.
When I did the experiments with the #34 wire on a short 9" secondary,
I was able to get something like 22" or maybe 25" spark length I
think before things got unmanageable.  Later, I tried using #24 wire
with thick PVC insulation, (on a different coil), and it arced badly
along the 17" tall secondary when giving a 40" spark are so.  
Bottom line, the secondary breakdown depended mainly on the
secondary length versus bang size, rather than on the insulation
thickness.  Just making these secondaries a little taller stops all
the breakdown along the secondary.

Cheers,
John Freau