Re: Variable Cap In Secondary?

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <Mddeming-at-aol-dot-com>

In a message dated 4/7/01 8:13:18 PM Eastern Daylight Time, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com 
writes: 



>
> Original poster: "Bill Parn by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" < 
> parn-at-starpower-dot-net> 
>
> I have seen variable tuned capacitors on E-Bay.  Think they are used for 
> radio transmitting stuff, or whatever you can dream up.  If you could build 
> one of those such to with stand the high voltage it would be a pretty cool 
> way 
> to do some fine tuning.  Maybe even motorize it so that you could fine tune 
> on the fly.  I have never tried it, however have thought about wanting to do 
> it. 
>
> Cheers, 
> Bill 


Hi Bill, All, 
A high power transmitter tuning cap with a few plates removed, located 
between the base of the coil and ground might not be too complicated or 
massive, but I've not seen it done. Some of Tesla's coils were designed to do 
useful things, like powering X-ray equipment, i.e., arcs and streamers were 
not the final objectives. These might have included more tunable features. It 
might be fun to try WITH a long, plastic, motor-driven tuning shaft - 
remember >20KV/inch gradients on secondaries are not unusual. 

Matt D.