RE: First light - NOTHING HAPPENED!

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

Original poster: "Ted Rosenberg by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Ted.Rosenberg-at-radioshack-dot-com>

Robert:
Two things come to mind.
1. the inside diameter of the primary you say is 8 inches for a 4 inch
secondary. I might be way off base but that seems like very loose coupling.
Anyone else agree? My 6.25 diameter tube has an inside diameter primary of
7.75..only about 3/4 inch clearance.

2. Have you considered plugging all your physical measurements into Bart
Anderson's Javascript Coil Page? Might be worth the 10 minutes or so and see
what you get.

http://www.classictesla-dot-com/java/javatc.html

Hope this is of some help.

Safety First

Ted

-----Original Message-----
From: Tesla list [mailto:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2001 8:47 PM
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: First light - NOTHING HAPPENED!


Original poster: "Malcolm Watts by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<m.j.watts-at-massey.ac.nz>

On 12 Jul 01, at 17:52, 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.
> 
> 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
> 
> 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??!!!

Hi Robert,
           There are two possible problems which spring to mind - 
lack of energy which makes breakout from your topload impossible 
and/or tuning. Can you draw sparks from the terminal with a grounded 
rod? If so, how long are they?

Regards,
Malcolm