Re: LTR causes arcing to primary?

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

Original poster: "Terry Fritz" <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>

Hi Brett,

It sounds like the primary to secondary coupling is too high which causes
these "racing arcs" along the secondary coil.  simply raise the secondary
coil up away from the primary (maybe an inch).  This increases distance
will reduce the coupling a little and eliminate the problem.

Cheers,

	Terry


At 05:54 PM 10/27/2001 +0000, you wrote:
>I recently built a tesla coil that worked BEAUTIFULLY.  However, I built it 
>with a capacitance on the primary tank that was almost exactly resonant.  
>Although the coil worked beautifully, it was short lived.  After less than 
>10 minutes of run time, the caps burst into flame.
>
>The coil is about 4.5 inches outer diameter, and about 21 inches of wind 
>length.  Because the coil is relatively long and skinny, I did not believe I 
>would need to add a strike rail to the coil.  And previously when I ran the 
>coil, it worked beautifully until the capacitors failed.
>
>I just completed my LTR cap (about 1.5 X resonance) and plugged it into the 
>coil.  I get streamers, but the secondary coil also arcs occasionally down 
>its length just a couple of centimeters from the surface of the coil.  I 
>don't think it is arcing to the primary coil, because the discharge is so 
>close to the surface of the secondary coil.  I'm not sure exactly what is 
>going on and I don't want to run it too much to investigate because I don't 
>want to risk a failure.
>
>Any idea what might be causing this if all I've changed was the capacitor?  
>Is it likely arcing to the primary coil or is something else likely going 
>on?  Would a strike rail help this problem?
>
>Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
>
>Brett
>
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