Re: Ignition Coil

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

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Hollmike-at-aol-dot-com>

Hi Justin, 
   I presume you are using this setup for charging your tank capacitor 
rather than using this for a triggering electrode.    I am only guessing, but 
do you think that maybe the 34uF cap causes a 60Hz resonance with the primary 
of the ignition coil?  Perhaps it is simply a power factor correction and 
causes the load to the dimmer to be more resistive than reactive. 
Mike 



>
> I was curious about some experiences that I've had with the ignition 
> coil-dimmer-capacitor circuit. All of the text that I've ever read has said 
> that a 1 or 2 uF motor run cap is all that is needed. Whenever I have used 
> a 
> cap of this size, the output from the coil is in the form of blue sparks. 
> It 
> seems that there must be an extremely small amount of current coming out of 
> the coil. The only way I've ever gotten an output that resembles the output 
> from an NST is with 34uF cap. This had held true for all of the various 
> ignition coils and dimmers that I've used.  I have tried a wide range of 
> values for the capacitor. The output starts to be capable of actually 
> arcing 
> instead just sparking with a capacitor rated at 15uF. Does anyone have any 
> idea why this would be happening? I can't find any problems with the way 
> I've 
> wired it. There's not a whole lot that can go wrong witth the wiring, there 
> are only three components. 
>                                                 Justin 
>
>