Re: First Light- Bad Results!

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

Original poster: "Hans Scholze by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <hanscs-at-eagle.ptialaska-dot-net>

Jake,

I can sympathize with your trouble finding NSTs, but have you tried looking
for oil burner ignition transformers (OBITs)?  I don't know about your
location, but where I'm from (Kodiak, Alaska) just about everyone heats with
oil.  Whole furnace units frequently show up at the dump/scrapyards with
good OBITs on them and most plumbing/heating services will have a pile of
them which they don't reuse because of liability concerns.  I happen to be
lucky - the father of one of my friends from school owns a heating service
so I hace access to a huge pile of OBITs, many of which work fine.  OBITs
are great for small coils, and if you stack them in parallel you can get a
respectable ammount of power.  I recently finished a OBIT-powered coil that
works great.  I am getting about 30" of streamers from two transformers and
I plan to add more.  I have heard that they are unreliable and prone to
failure, but have never had any problems myself.

About your coil:  I have never had much sucess with very small coils.
Before my current coil (4.5" x 18" secondary) I built a number of small one
and two inch coils but could never get more than 5" sparks from them.  No
one else has mentioned your spark gap.  I have foung that a good gap makes a
HUGE difference in performance.  You should either spread yours over at
least 3 - 6 smaller gaps in series of blast air through your single gap.

Also, a lot of people will probably tell you to get an MMC.  I have one and
its great, but not necessary.  I have had great results with bottle caps
also.

Others have already covered the other two weak points - your primary and
ground.

Have fun.  I built my first coil sometime around age 13 also.  Now everyone
thinks I'm crazy because I just graduated from high school and there was
footage in the senior video of me sitting behind my coil throwing 30" sparks
with a flourescent light tube in my mouth!

Hans

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2001 6:12 AM
Subject: First Light- Bad Results!


> Original poster: "Jake Draper by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<cybermecium2-at-home-dot-com>
>
> Hi, I'm the 13 year old on the list and just finished my first Tesla coil
> today. I turned it on and got bad results, about 1cm hair-thin sparks off
the
> top wire. Here are the specifications for this coil:
>
> Power Source: 12V ignition coil
> Primary Capacitor: 2 Salt water beer bottle caps
> Primary Coil: 4 turns of TV Coax Cable
> Secondary Coil: ~1000 turns (forgot how many) on a 2"x8" plastic
form.
> Spark Gap: 2 bolts on metal L brackets, adjustable from 3 inches to
> touching
> Ground: I didn't connect it to RF ground, I just drew sparks from the
> bottom of the seconday to the top.
> Topload: None, just a wire sticking out.
>
> So what should I do to make this coil run at it's full potential BESIDES
> getting an NST?
>
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