Re: A new tuning idea?

[Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>]

Hi Gary,

	The secondary RMS current is around 350mA for a 15/60 coil.  At least it
is for my big LTR coil but say 100-400mA should cover them all...

John Courture's Tesla Coil Construction Guide describes this exact
technique on pages 14-5 and 14-6.  He suggests a number 1891 lamp.  The
resistance of the lamp is non-linear in this high current, low duty cycle
use so calibration would be tricky but for basic qualitative tuning it
works.  Perhpas a way could be found to calibrate it with some thought...

I seem to remeber the "first" person to think of this was that guy from
Croatia :-))

Cheers,

	Terry

At 08:56 AM 7/21/00 -0400, you wrote:
>Several months ago I raised the possibility of metering the light output
>from a fluorescent tube as a means of quantifying the output of a coil for
>tuning purposes.  I never actually tried this as further thought made me
>think that varying streamer length and attachment would result in variable
>E-fields and unstable readings.
>
>Now I'm wondering if metering the secondary base current might provide a
>more stable and indicative reading of "in-tune"-ness.  This might be
>accomplished simply by inserting a small incandescent bulb in series with
>the secondary base connection, and again using a photocell and analog ohm
>meter to indicate the relative base current.  It would probably work best to
>provide a close target for the streamers so that they are essentially
>continuous and the same length.
>
>Does anyone know what the RMS base current for a medium-sized (15/60 NST
>powered) coil might be?
>
>Regards, Gary Lau
>Waltham, MA USA
>