Re: Undesired "effect" with saltwater caps

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Original poster: "Jonathan Peakall by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <jpeakall-at-mcn-dot-org>

Chris,


> I realize that many experienced coil builders frown upon salt water
> caps, but right now I'm trying to make the most of available materials.

I think SW caps are great. Bulletproof and cheap, perfect for experimenting.


> What's happening is, now that I've switched to a series of copper tube
> sections as my spark gap (8 tube segments in series, ca. 1 mm apart),
> I'm getting big, loud (!) sparks inside the Snapple box which appear to
> be going from one bottle cap to the neighboring outside plate of the
> next bottle (this is several inches' distance).  >
> primary coil setups, including one of insulated Romex 12 ga. stranded

Sounds to me like your gap might be a bit wide, and you might be close to
resonant tank cap size, and so you are getting a BIG voltage rise. Replace
the bottles, and narrow the gap and see what happens. I have punctured some
champagne bottle caps (don't us green glass, it sucks) and I blew a couple
of the bottles. After being blow, they will forever arc over at much lower
voltages, so you might try just replacing the bottles and leaving the gap
setting and see if you blow more caps. Do you have a safety gap?

Another thig you could do is dump your cpas into a bucket, and cover them
with oil.

Jonathan Peakall