Racing sparks study, was A couple cruddy coil pics

["sundog" <sundog-at-xxxxxxxxxxxx> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-xxxxxxxxxx>)]

Hi all,

 The rings do increase the creepage distance for the racing sparks, but they
aren't a "cure all" for them.  Proper tuning is still required, but they
allow you to couple it tighter.  I tried it (5 rings on a 2" coil, ~1.5"
apart, all at the bottom (where 90% of my racing sparks are).  On a side
note here,

 I'no noticed 2 kinds of racing sparks on my coils, both my 8" (before I
blew the tranny) and my 2" coils (before they burned up).  The out-of-tune
situation usually made sparks from top (or close to it) to bottom.
Overcoupling usually flashed from the bottom windings to ~1/4 to 1/2 the way
up, but rarely all the way to the top. Also, when *really* tightly coupled,
I get a "fan" of sparks from the first turn of the primary to the first turn
of the secondary.  Very weird.  They don't seem to burn the wire or form,
but they rob serious power from the coil.

  So the discs may help you couple it tighter to a point, and they can
definately cut down on tuning-based flashovers, but eventually it *will*
flash if you keep pushing it, and when it does flash over, it ooh boy..On
just the 2" coil I blasted the wires at the base of the secondary apart when
it shorted, through a generous layer of silicon.  But while it ran, man did
it crank out some really hot arcs :)
							Just my $.02
												Sundog
-----Original Message-----
From: Tesla list [mailto:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
Sent: Monday, November 20, 2000 12:24 AM
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: A couple cruddy coil pics


Original poster: "Barton B. Anderson" <tesla123-at-pacbell-dot-net>

Mike,

Nice observation. I took another look at the image, saved it to disk, then
changed the gamma to 1.8. The rings were then clearly visible and kind of
tinted
blue? This is a similar design that Robert Stevens' has used. If I remember
correctly, these type of disks are used to increase surface creep distance
between top potential and ground along the secondary's length. But "cool" is
another likely candidate. It will be interesting to hear if the disks were
used
to correct a problem.

Bart

Tesla list wrote:

> Original poster: "Mike Novak" <acmnovak-at-email.msn-dot-com>
>
> What's with the rings on the secondary? Do you need these or are they just
> there for looks? I was thinking of putting three HDPE rings on the
secondary
> of my next coil, just because it looks cool :) What material are yours
made
> of?
> -Mike
>
> > Original poster: "Rod & Patti" <rstapivic-at-cfl.rr-dot-com>
> >
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > I tried the best I could to shoot with what I have.  I promise that
> > sometime this weekend we will fire up again and I will put all pictures
> > that I have, incuding the enire setup on the page.  But for now...
> >
> > http://home.cfl.rr-dot-com/stapivic/
> >
> >
> > Happy coiling!
> >
> > Rod & Patti
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >