Re: Still mystified by odd TC behavior, what gives?

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

Original poster: "Jonathan Peakall by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <jpeakall-at-mcn-dot-org>

Jason,

Tuned to either 5 or 6 turns, I get nothing. If the large cap (.025) was
bad, nothing should happen with it in series with the smaller cap
(.0028), no? Do caps go "partially" bad? There is no bad smell, and I
see no evidence of the magical "smoke" escaping.

TIA,

Jonathan Peakall
Tesla list wrote:
> 
> Original poster: "Jason Petrou by way of Terry Fritz
<twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <jasonp-at-btinternet-dot-com>
> 
> Hi there (comments below)
> 
> I think the main problem may be tuning. You need to tune your coil to about
> the 4 1/2 turn to get anywhere near the correct resonance.
> 
> The other problem is that the cap value is quite large for the coil - i
> think that more like 0.01uF would be better. Id connect the caps in series
> to half the capacitance if I were you
> 
> If there is an electric firey smell or the cap seems to be ruptured then the
> dielectric could have gone in the cap, and it may be internally arcing. A
> good way to measure this is to charge the cap up then discharge it thru the
> SG - if both of the caps spark the same then they are ok.
> 
> In all honesty I think that your main problem though is the tuning - if the
> gap sounds as mean as it does, then the primary must be badly tuned. If you
> work out what it was, repost a message to say how you sorted it - i would be
> interested to find out!
> 
> Regards,
> Jason