Re: My Primary Coil disaster

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

Original poster: "Jim Mora by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <jmora-at-jetlink-dot-net>

Ha ha Patrick,

I am not laughing at you but with you :-) I made my primary form out of
exactly drilled plexi. When I
tried to feed the tube through the holes, I was cursing big time!

I still have 20-30 feet or so of butchered tube which I am using for over
kill in the power supply
grounding. Soldered # 4 lugs work well for this. The form will be modified
to cut outs!

You are paying way too much for the tubing. My fifty feet cost $11.00 which
is probably wholesale.

Hang in there. All things worth doing seem to be frustrating.

Jim


Tesla list 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
>