Re: First light - NOTHING HAPPENED!

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

Original poster: "Barton B. Anderson by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <tesla123-at-pacbell-dot-net>

Hi Robert,

Tesla list 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.

Robert, in order for anyone one of us to help get your coil sparking (the
goal), we need some more
info throughout your specs. Here, it would be nice to know the winding length.

> primary - 8" inner diameter - 13 turns of 1/4" copper tubing spaced 1/4"
> apart on lexan supports

ok, is it a flat primary, cone, or helical?

> spark gap - RQ/TCBOR gap with 7 gaps, 1/2" copper pipe.

ok, what is the gap? In otherwords, if you measuer the distance of the
spacing between each pipe
segment, what is the total gap spacing? Also, is there air flowing over the
gap or not?

> capacitor - 1 2L soda bottle with salt water on the inside and the
> outside.

Ouch, probably a big source of the problem (by this, I mean I'm not sure of
the capacitance). Is
there anyway to measure the capacitance of your saltwater cap? Can you take
it to Radio Shack or
somewhere where there is a meter and measure it? The capacitance value is
criticle to determine
where you should tune your primary.

> topload - 2 pie pans bolted back-to-back and 4" aluminum dryer ducting.

This is also a criticle piece of the puzzle since the top load changes the
resonant frequency of
the resonator (coil and top load) thus changing where the primary should be
tapped based on the
capacitor value. What's the outer diameter of the pie pans as well as the
o.d. of the dryer duct?

> power supply - 15/30 NST

good.

> I turned on the power and heard the spark gap firing but no sparks were
> breaking out at the top. i checked again to make sure i had it wired
> correctly, and it still didn't work. i tried getting 1" strikes to a
> grounded rod, still nothing. i then attempted to tune it by tapping into
> the primary at various locations. still nothing. i then tapped into
> other gaps in the RQ gap and tinkered with the primary to no avail. I
> then checked my tranny to make sure it hadn't fried but it worked
> perfectly. I decided to give up when it started raining, and i thought
> "rain+high voltage=ZZZZAAAAP" . Can anyone please tell me why it is not
> working??!!!

Good move! Your safety consciencious and this is good. The fact that your
gap is trying to do
something is a good sign. I think there is simply a tuning issue. You may
not have enough turns on
your primary, but with the data asked for, that will definately be determined.

I really think it is important to determine your capacitance via measurment
and not calc in your
case because it's an odd sized vessel your using. Simply take the cap to
Radio Shack or wherever
and see if they can measure it with one of their meters. From there, should
you make more, you'll
know approximately the size of each if built identical to eachother.

Take care,
Bart