REALLY COOL (weird observations and big improvement)

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

Original poster: "David W by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <dav_w926-at-hotmail-dot-com>

Although last saturday wasn't the first time I ran my coil, it really wowed 
me because the lightning it made was huge compared to the last time I ran 
it.

Origionally it was set up with three nst's for 15Kv and 180mA.  The primary 
is 3/8" tubing w/ 3/8" spacing tapped around 12 turns with a 8" by 26" 
secondary with 900 turns of 22 AWG, 7" X 30" torroid, new .05uF mmc LTR cap 
(never even got warm:) ), 5 gap copper pipe static gap with a reverse vaccum 
motor blower. Because the coil was far from done (hey, it still is), the 
tank circuit was wired mostly with 12 AWG solid wire. The coil was operated 
in the summer, and arcs were around four feet long, and not to mention 
uncontrollable racing arcs from top to bottom of the secondary-- which is 
another story... The results were neither impressive nor dissapointing for 
one of the first higher power runs.

Saturdays setup was basically the same except that the supply line which at 
first was a single extension cord used with 240V was upgraded to two 
extension cords, the tank wiring was replaced with 10AWG stranded, the 
primary was tapped at 10 1/2 turns, and a corona suppression ring was put on 
the top of the secondary below the torroid. Other things like multiple 
switches and a 30 amp relay were also very helpful. It was also COLD and 
snow covered out this time because I live in MA.

Anyways, streamers were consistently at least 5 1/2 feet long, striking 
nearby objects (chairs, transformers etc.) that is a foot and a half 
increase! And the arcs looked hotter as well. Only a few racing arcs during 
the tuning process occurred. Boy was I excited since I hadn't even ran my 
coil for months.

The REAL arcs though, were when I blew out one transformer and added two 
more. I think it may have been the lack of a strike rail that blew my nst, 
but you never know cause nsts are pieces of junk when used for tesla 
service. So I then had four 15/60's and a quick strike rail set up, and 
another capacitor panel for a total of .067uF LTR. I initially moved the tap 
in 1 turn and finally tuned to 9 1/16 turns and WHOA, what d'ya know, my TC 
is throwing beautiful 7 1/2, 8 foot arcs!!! They occasionally hit the snow 
and were radiating from both sides of the torroid.

So that's about 3600 watts with 8 foot arcs with a blower gap and Stranded 
10AWG wire that's not even copper for the tank circuit, that made me happy! 
Especially considering that I still have many improvements, just to name a 
few: rotary gap, heavy duty capacitor and tank bus wiring, and MORE POWER :) 
(hey, I have to use my .1uF worth of mmcs for something)

I can't wait ;-)

Do you think the bitter cold (and probably dry) air played a significant 
role in the HUGE perfomance increase? Or was it mostly because of the extra 
900 watts? I would like to get similar results in the summer as well.

Oh yeah, I said weird effects in the description. Well, when I brought my 
secondary inside, it got all frosty. We all know that the natural thing to 
do on a frosty, shiny surface is to draw all over it with your fingers, so 
that's what I was doing. It was then I noticed these spiderwebby crackly 
looking lines running up and down my secondary. HEY, they were the exact 
paths my racing arcs took in very FINE detail. They could be formed and 
reformed again by simply wiping and refrosting the secondary with my breath. 
It was very interesting to see the trends that the arcs followed in such 
fine detail and certainty.

Well, good luck to you all!
David W
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