Re: "best" former material?

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

Original poster: "Ray von Postel by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <vonpostel-at-prodigy-dot-net>

John:
What is it about the materials you mentioned that make them suitable for coil
secondary
formers?  Is it their dielectric constant, lack of water absorption, or what?
Assume you had
to choose among all those mentioned plus Pyrex glass.  They are sitting in
front of
you,  exactly the same size,
so you don't have to do anything but wind on the wire, and best of
all......free.
Neither appearance
nor mechanical properties are to be considered.  The only criteria is
electrical
properties.
Which would you select and why?  No, I am not trying to start an argument!
 := }

At one time, and maybe it is still available, you could buy coil stock for
building
Ham transmitters.  These were
windings of bare, silver plated, or enameled wire, space wound, and held in
position by 3 or 4 bars of what I
took to be polystyrene running down the length of the winding.  They were not
suitable for Tesla coils because of
the low inductance.  My thought is that such a scheme might be applied to
secondaries wound with heavier
gages of wire such as AWG 14 or 10.  The larger wire would help support the
structure particularly if hard drawn
wire were used. Enameled wire would not be needed if the coil is space
wound.  The
objective is to build a
solenoid with minimal insulation losses.  Yes, I realize that there is not
a large
loss from this source at the low
operating frequencies of Tesla coils, but every little bit of efficiency
helps on
the electric bill.  Know if this has
been tried?

Ray

Tesla list wrote:

>
> > Original poster: "Corey May by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <
> > cbmay-at-home-dot-com>
> >
> >  Hello, what is better....a sonotube, PVC, or acrylic for a secondary
> former.
> >
> >
> >  What is the best...or is there better one's than these?
> >
> >  Corey
>
> Corey,
>
> Of the 3 you mentioned, acrylic is best, pvc, next and sonotube
> last.  Polyethylene and polypropeline are the best of the common
> materials, and styrene is very good too.   In a spark gap TC, you'll
> probably see no difference in spark output with any of the materials
> mentioned.
>
> JOhn Freau