A primary concern...

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

Original poster: "BunnyKiller by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <bigfoo39-at-telocity-dot-com>

Hi All...

after a week of playing around with the dual piggie setup, I've come to the
conclusion that the higher voltage output (280V-at-120X = 30KV+) is more
trouble than
what it is worth. To start, insulating properties and wiring is pushed to its
limits. Since I dont have 30KV rated wire, any point ( even semi conductive
(( dry
wood)) ) that is within 1" of the wire becomes a path to ground. Previous
safety
gap settings are way too small, and the spark gaps require major
reconsiderations.

Also, if the RF ground wire is ANYwhere near the pig, it creates nasty feedback
problems to the variacs. ( yes I fried my variacs :(    all it took was one
good
discharge to the safety gap and POOF goes the Variacs, and this was at 40%
of the
dial , the only thing i can think of was that the wire leading from the center
ball of the safety gap was about 1/2" from the pig case, the safety gap fired
which hi volted the case which in turn high volted the straps inside the
case that
feed the variac voltage to the transformers. Thus the hi potential of the case
went for the lower potential ( the 240 feed) and OOOOPS.

Lesson learned here, ground out the pig case to either a dedicated ground or to
the system ground, not the RF ground.

I like challenges but i dont like frying my equipment...   so I think ill
do the
parallel piggies instead of series piggies after I rebuild the variacs.....
 Ive
done some math and 14400 -at- 1.4A = 30KV -at- .6A approximately...

now since I've bored yall to death here is a question....

I'm thinking of taking 1/2" Cu tubing and running it thru a roller press to
flatten it into a ribbon, this should result in a width of .8"
approximately. What
I have planned is to do this for 3/4's of the length and leave the other 1/4
length as tubular form ( for tapping) what we would have here is 3/4's of the
primary as a ribbon form and the last 1/4 as a tubular form ( this is mainly an
idea to reduce the overall primary diameter).  How would this affect the
mag field
of the primary???  Would it be detrimental or no difference?

thinking again .....

Scot D