Re: My Primary Coil disaster

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

Original poster: "Gregory Hunter by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <ghunter31014-at-yahoo-dot-com>

Hi Patrick,

Been there, done that, my sincere sympathies...

First off, are you using refrigeration tubing? This is
important, as Cu tube comes in different varieties of
hardness, thickness, cost, etc. Refrigeration tubing
is thinner, softer, cheaper, and easier to work with.
A 50' spool of the 1/4 OD stuff is only about $18 at a
home store such as Lowe's, Home Depot, etc.

Second, you need a scheme wherein you can simply lay
the tubing on top of the supports somehow. The tube
already comes coiled--you need a way to just transfer
that coil to your supports. This might entail notched
supports, or something even simpler. Visit my site to
see the world's simplest primary scheme--the hideous
yet highly practical cable tie system.

Salvage your old primary? Probably not. Cu tube gets
harder and more brittle as it is bent, flexed,
twisted. etc. It will snap with repeated bending.
Sorry.

Greg
http://hot-streamer-dot-com/greg

--- Tesla list <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com> wrote:
> Original poster: "Patrick Bloofon by way of Terry
> Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <transactoid-at-home-dot-com>
> 
> Okay, this whole tesla coil thing has not been going
> my way. First, the wire
> breaks while winding the secondary (perhaps you've
> seen my post...). Now, my
> primary coil is all but an expensive hunk of copper.
>  
> I cut out and drilled 5 really nice offsets. I
> mounted them onto a surface, and
> began feeding 1/4" copper tube through it, starting
> from the outside.  After
> about 5 loops, the tubing was so bent, twisted, and
> demented out of shape I
> couldn't go any further.  Loops were overlapping and
> the tube was flexed in
> multiple planes (ie, bent side to side as well as up
> and down...). I'll try to
> get some pictures up so you can see this mess.
>  
> What I'd like to know is:
>  
> -Are there any good ways to re-bend or straigten the
> copper tubing when it is
> in such a state? (ie, is this thing salvagable)
>  
> -Seeing as my method of winding failed miserably,
> I'm guessing it's not how
> others do it. What is the "proper" way to wind it?
>  
> PS. This copper tube is extremely expensive where I
> live. The cheapest I found
> was $30 for 50 feet.  Home Depot doesn't even carry
> it around here.
>  
> Thanks,
> "A very frustrated coiler",
> Patrick
>  
> 
> 
> 


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