Re: On the fly tuning of a TC

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

Original poster: "David Knaack by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <dknaack-at-rdtech-dot-com>

From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
> suddenly a streamer hit the primary [...] and the computer turned off. It
> turns out that I had fried the mainboard of the PC
>
> I have still not learnt from my mistakes, and am trying to develop an new
trpe
> of on the fly tuning. Please reply wiht ideas (or just to take the
p***!!!)

Assuming you have a budget, I would recommend obtaining a length of
fiber optic cable and build or buy a tranceiver assembly for it. Then
you can build the motor and controller into a protected, possibly
battery powered box under the coil.

I personally would get rid of the computer and stepper motor and replace
it with two cables, an H-bridge driver and a geared down servo.  You can
run it forward or backward with a couple of switches and theres no risk
to the computer.

You could also try using shielded coil and a standard IC optocoupler,
but I'm sure I wouldn't trust it to do any good at all against a
direct strike to the cable.  I'd trust a homemade optocoupler much
more.

DK