Re: First light - NOTHING HAPPENED!

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

Original poster: "J. B. Weazle McCreath by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <weazle-at-hurontel.on.ca>


At 05:52 PM 12/07/01 -0600, you wrote:
>
>Original poster: "Robert by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<obiwan1186-at-sunflower-dot-com>
>
>Bad results on the first light of my 4" coil. here's the specs
>
>secondary - 4" pvc wound with 850 turns of 22 guage wire and sealed with
>polyurithane. sealed off with lexan discs. heavily grounded with 5, 15"
>sections of copper pipe pounded into soaking wet ground and wired in
>parallel.
>
>primary - 8" inner diameter - 13 turns of 1/4" copper tubing spaced 1/4"
>apart on lexan supports
>
>spark gap - RQ/TCBOR gap with 7 gaps, 1/2" copper pipe.
>
>capacitor - 1 2L soda bottle with salt water on the inside and the
>outside.
>
>topload - 2 pie pans bolted back-to-back and 4" aluminum dryer ducting.
>
>power supply - 15/30 NST
>

Robert,

Your coil is similar to one of mine in regards to the secondary and
the top loading.  Your power supply is higher in voltage, but lower
in current than mine.  However, I see a couple of potential problem
areas with your coil.

1) Your primary inner diameter is rather large, reducing the coupling
   to the secondary.  A 1" gap between prim. & sec. is generally OK.

2) I don't know what the capacity of your 2 litre brine cap is, but I
   suspect it's way on the low side, meaning you can't tune the coil,
   as you run out of primary turns.

I know it's a bit of a pain, but I'd try re-winding the primary so as
to get its inner diameter a little smaller, which will greatly help
out with increasing the coupling.

Make up a couple more of your bottle caps and parallel them with the
one you have already.  That will give you more capacity, which will
mean you need fewer primary turns, and you should then be able to
find the "sweet spot" for tapping.

Good luck and safe coiling...my $0.02 worth.




73, Weazle, VE3EAR/VE3WZL

Listening: 147.030+ and 442.075+
E-mail:    weazle-at-hurontel.on.ca
           or ve3ear-at-rac.ca
Web site:  www.hurontel.on.ca/~weazle