Review of D&M High Voltage Toroids

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

Original poster: "Daniel McCauley by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <dhmccauley-at-spacecatlighting-dot-com>

Just thought I'd provide an independent review of D&M High Voltage Toroids.

At first when building my first conventional tesla coil, I attempted to try
and build my own homemade toroid out of aluminum ducting and aluminum
plumbers tape.  However, halfway through this endeavor, my toroid was really
beginning to look like a complete hunk of garbage.  I've already put about
$1200 into my four inch coil and probably at least 200 hours of work and
wasn't about to put a piece of garbage ontop of my beautiful coil.  I looked
into buying a commercially spun toroid, but the price of $425.00 and a ten
week lead time for a 5" x 20" toroid was a bit high even for my budget.
After searching the archives and internet, I came across D & M High Voltage
products which include a variety of home built toroids.

I was very skeptical at first since it wasn't a spun toroid, and was built
basically out of the same materials as most would build their own homegrown
toroids.  But I decided to buy one of their 5" x 20" toroids anyways and
after about 2 1/2 weeks of waiting, I finally got my toroid.

Well, I have to say this is one darn fine toroid.  The toroid was build
extremely well, the surface was very smooth (other than the edges of the
tape), and appears very strong.  The center support disk was aluminum and
was drilled with about a 1/2" diameter hole which I'll attach right to the
top of my secondary via a nylon bolt.  The price of the toroid was only
$79.95 with shipping at $19.95.  At first I thought the shipping was too
expensive, but actual shipping came to about $14.95 via insured USPS (which
is two days on average in the continental united states) and the toroid was
packaged extremely well with materials that probably well exceeded the
remaining $5.95.  Also, I think the price of $79.95 is quite a steal as
well.  It appears that many hours were put into the building of this toroid
so its worth every penny.

So it is my recommendation that anyone looking for a fantastic looking
toroid, check out D & M High Voltage toroids.  They are great toroids at an
even greater price.  Definitely an excellent alternative to expensive
commercially spun toroids.

You can see the toroids at the following link:

http://pw1-dot-netcom-dot-com/~davmckin/DMsEconomicalToroids.htm

And I also have a picture of their 5" x 20" toroid on my website at:
http://www.spacecatlighting-dot-com/teslacoil3.htm

Dan