Re: rotary construction

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

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

In a message dated 8/9/01 10:48:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com 
writes:

> Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Cydesho-at-aol.
> com>
>  
>  I have my rotary sprak gap just about finished, but I had a question about 
>  the conducting ring that goes on the rotating disc. Right now, I have a 
ring 
> 
>  made out the aluminum used in pie pans, but I'm concerned that It might be 
>  too thin to handle the current that will be going through it. I'm running 
my 
> 
>  coil off of a 15kV 60mA NST. Any comments on this? I hate to ruin my disc 
>  because the conductive ring overheated. Can anyone suggest a material that 
I 
> 
>  can find at an average hardware store?
>                                  Justin

Justin,

I'm sure there's plenty of suitable metal available from various
sources.  You could even take an old aluminum cooking pot and
cut a disc out of the bottom of the pot.  You could take a trip
to your local scrapyard and find a piece of 0.025" or 0.015"
copper or brass, or 0.040" aluminum.  Sometimes you can
find an old aluminum chassis from some sort of junked
electronic equipment, etc.  You can even use a piece of
galvanized steel which you can get at a hardware store, or
elsewhere.  Or cut a piece out of an old refrigerator thown
out in the street, etc.  Steel is said to be terrible for RF,
but I doubt you'll see any difference in performance.  There
are other specialty shops that use copper or aluminum for
their work also.  For instance, there are shops that do
roofing work, and they use copper at times for flashing.
There are shops that build oven hoods for stoves, and they
use copper and aluminum, etc.

BTW, depending on how much power you're running, the
pie plates you're using may be fine.  There are two types
of pie plates;  real ones made from heavier gauge, and
foil ones that the pies come in when you buy a ready-made
pie from the store.

Or join the triggered gap bandwagon   :)

Happy hunting, 
and let those sparks blare outwards!

John Freau