RE: Finally First Light

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

Original poster: "Lau, Gary by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Gary.Lau-at-compaq-dot-com>

Hi Mark:

As you noted, your SW cap is probably the most fruitful area for
improvement.  While 10nF would be the mains-resonant value, I've
personally had better results with 20nF with my 15/60 NST.

While a good RF ground is important, the benefit is more in the area of
preventing RF from getting back into your mains wiring, and less to do
with performance.

With your cylinder gap, you have a fan blowing on it, right?

Your pie pan top load needs to be a more rounded shape (i.e. a toroid)
to prevent premature breakout.

The other thing is that a 2.5"x12" secondary is very much on the small
side for a 15/60 power supply.  You'll have a hard time preventing
primary strikes with such a short secondary.  You'll probably need a
thicker seconndary wire to give the same number of turns on a wider and
longer secondary form.

Regards, Gary Lau
MA, USA

>Original poster: "Stolz, Mark by way of Terry Fritz
<twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Mark.Stolz-at-st-systems-dot-com>
>
>Hi All!
>
>I finally got first light on my first coil.  Here's the specs:
>
>Primary Circuit
>---------------------
>15/60 NST
>9.49 nf saltwater cap
>~9.25 turns of 4AWG bare wire
>RQ/TCBOR gap with 6 gaps ~.30"
>
>Secondary
>---------------
>2.5" diameter
>1170 turns of 31AWG
>12" winding length
>Two 8" pie pans for topload
>
>Output is 12-13"
>
>I know the output can improve and I know at least two areas that need
>improvement.  The first being the cap.  It should be about 10nf so
that's a
>little low and it is a saltwater cap which means loss.
>
>I also don't have a good ground right now, I'm clipped to a peice of
copper
>ribbon on the floor of the garage.
>
>This was just the functional test before I build the cabinet to mount
it all
>in, but I was excited to share it with the list.
>
>If y'all see anything I have obviously done wrong, please let me know.
If
>you would like to see some initial pics, here is a link.
>http://users2.ev1-dot-net/~nmyreality/tesla/tesla.html
>
>Mark Stolz
>Houston, TX