Re: secondary wire gauge, how much does it matter 26 vs. 35 awg

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

In a message dated 7/27/00 6:49:02 PM Pacific Daylight Time, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com 
writes:

> Original poster: "Alex Madsen" <alexmadsen-at-netzero-dot-net> 
>  
>  I was wondering how much the gauge of the wire matter in the secondary. I
>  know that a high gauge drops the frequency. I have also heard that a high
>  gauge also reduce the output of the coil due to resistance. I am asking 
this
>  because I thought I was buying 26 awg magnet wire (0.015 in.) but got 0.015
>  cm ( 0.0056 in.) wire which = about 35 awg wire. I need to know if I should
>  buy the right stuff which means lost  of $$ or use this stuff.
>  The secondary will be 4.25 in. in diameter and 22 in tall. supplied by 15 
kv
>  60ma NST. The big question is " How big will the loss in discharge length?"
>  Thank You for your help!!
>  

Alex,

In general, I prefer to use thinner wire in the secondary rather than
thicker, because it gives more turns, and more inductance, while
still permitting the secondary to be relatively small.  A small secondary
will have less self capacitance which lets the energy be better
concentrated in the toroid for a given power input which contributes
to longer sparks.   Another advantage to using thin wire is that it
generally requires more turns in the primary which raises the primary
surge impedance which reduces gap losses which also helps to give
longer sparks.  The benefits of this (use of thin secondary wire) seems 
to be little known in the coiling world.  Generally you'll get about 10%
longer sparks using thin wire.   BUT ..... there's a limit to how thin
you can go.  At some point, the losses become so high that there
may be no benefit.  I do not know exactly where that point is.  I use
28 awg wire for up to 65" sparks and it works excellently.

  http://hometown.aol-dot-com/futuret/page1.html

Cheers,
John Freau