RE: HELP ME! (SF deadline is approaching)

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

Original poster: "Garry Freemyer by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <garry-at-ndfc-dot-com>

Hmm, Try tuning from inside out. The closer the four turns you need is
closer to the secondary without flashover or racing sparks, the better. The
flashover might be because the primary is too close so raise the secondary.
If you get racing sparks it may be because its out of tune or the primary is
too close.

I am surprised your cap works. I've had nothing but rotton luck with stacked
plate caps. I prefer MMC myself. I don't know if you think you need more
capacitance, but if you do, you need to hook the caps in parallell. Series
only doubles the voltage and halves the capacitance. Parallel just doubles
the capacitance and the voltage stays the same assuming both caps are the
same.

-----Original Message-----
From: Tesla list [mailto:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
Sent: Monday, March 19, 2001 6:10 AM
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: HELP ME! (SF deadline is approaching)


Original poster: "Drew Murray by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>"
<drewallmighty-at-hotmail-dot-com>

Ummmmm,
Howdy!
I need help! (with my tesla coil of course)
I am desperately trying to get longer and more impressive sparks out of it.
Here are the specs;

-- 8" light green PVC sewer pipe, washed and wound with 24 AWG for 26".
Coated with polyurethane spray.

-- Aluminum flexi duct covered in al tape for topload.

-- 4500v 1kva potential transformer boosted to 10500v with 300v input.(i
know)

-- Rotary spark gap, small fast dc motor, wooden disc, and steel wood screws
for electrodes. (I am using screws because i have not seen anything that
works better) I have gotten over double the spark length with the rsg than i
did with a RQ static gap. Its some loud though.

-- 50 feet of soft copper 1/4" refrigeration tubing in a flat Archimedes
spiral form for primary. Around 4 spaces from the outside turn is the best
tapping point.

-- Homemade stacked plate cap. Made with 1 gallon zip lock baggies. There
are around 200 of them. I have inserted a foil plate into every fourth bag.
It works much better than salt water caps but not well enough. I have
ordered another 200 bags and i am going to try putting two larger ones in a
series. I am curious about this style of cap. Does coil performance improve
if you have many large caps in a series?

My longest sparks to this day are around 18 inches. I really want to get
this puppy throwing nice long white sparks for the science fair and i would
really appreciate some helpful advice.
                                                     Thanks guys,
                                                     Drew Murray

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