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

["Mark Broker" <broker-at-uwplatt.edu> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)]

Alex,

For grins and giggles, I placed a short piece of extremely thin (exact gauge
unknown, but was probably ~40AWG) wire over the toroid of my coil and proceeded
to crank the juice.  I was running about 1350W, and got ~54" to ground
consistently with the little wire.  But, I could see the sparks turning
green up
to about 6 inches from the end of the wire, and the wire got a little orange in
color before the wire blew off in the gentle breeze (which made a very nice
banjo effect when the wind blew a little harder).

I would suspect that 35AWG is a little too thin for a 900W, 4.25" D. coil.
35AWG wire has a DC resistance of 330 ohms per 1000 feet, and you'd want to use
at least that much wire.

I don't suppose that you can return it?

Mark B.


Tesla list wrote:

> 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!!
>
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