Re: 1st Tesla Coil

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

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

Chris,

I agree that your spark gap is a good bet for what is limiting your arcs. My
personal experience is that NST power level don't work well with multi gaps.
Many say this isn't true, but it has been for me. I think I just never built
a good multi gap. Anyway..

Try a single sucker gap. I made a variant of Gary Lau's. Really cheap (less
than $20) and easy to make (less than 3 hours). Mine improved my performance
dramatically with a 15/60 NST. You can see mine at:

http://madlabs.info/index.php?x=spark_gaps.jsp

I don't have Gary's URL handy, but searching for his name should find his
site. I really think this is the cheapie beginners gap of choice. There are
better gaps out there, but for price, ease of construction and performance
it can't be beat.

Regards,

Jonathan Peakall


----- Original Message -----
From: Tesla list <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Sunday, August 11, 2002 9:32 AM
Subject: Re: 1st Tesla Coil


> Original poster: "Chris Roberts by way of Terry Fritz
<twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <quezacotl_14000000000000-at-yahoo-dot-com>
>
>
> Hi again,
>
>            Thanks for the advice so far. I built a new, smaller toroid
today  (
> a couple of people mentioned that to me) which now measures about 11"
diameter
> and has a 3" thickness except so far I haven't had any larger sparks. I
have
> tried re-tuning it and adding-subtracting bottles so I don't think that's
the
> problem. I think the main problem might be that my existing spark gap is
pretty
> simple right now ( 6 - .0625" gaps )  and I think I need to start moving
some
> air through it. So if anyone knows how I could modify my existing one ( I
don't
> want to have to build an asynchronous rotary spark gap yet) please tell
me. If
> you have any questions, advice, or want some really poor quality photos of
my
> coil please email me at
>
<mailto:quezacotl_14000000000000-at-yahoo-dot-com>quezacotl_14000000000000-at-yahoo.co
m
>
> Thanks,
>
>         Chris
>
>
>
>
>