Re: Problems with First Tesla Coil

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

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Tesla729-at-cs-dot-com>

In a message dated 8/26/02 8:47:26 PM Pacific Daylight Time, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
writes: 
>
> Tomorrow I will use a smaller toroid to see if I indeed have a primary with
> too few turns.
>
> Thanks for all the help.  I'm about scratching my head right now.
>
> Dan



Dan,

Incidently, just how large is your toroid? If your toroid is too
large in relation to the power available from your transformer,
then you may not be able to obtain breakout. However, it
would take a pretty large toroid for a 15/60 NST not to be
able to at least obtain some breakout once resonance is
achieved. Try putting a breakput point (like a thumbtack
or something like that) and see if you can get any spark 
breakout from the protrusion point.

Also, 27.5 nFD is a pretty large capacitor for a 15/60 NST 
to fully charge in 8.33 msec - the charge cycle at 120 bps.
If your capacitor isn't able to fully charge, then the coil
will not spark nearly as well as it should. However, 
many coilers have successfully ran coils with primary 
caps up to 3X LTR and that's pretty close to what
you've got, so that may not be an issue.?

Some of the list engineers could run a few of the 
numbers for you on these suggestions or you could
crunch the numbers thru a good Tesla designer program
like Bart Anderson's Java program.

Sparkin' in Memphis,
David Rieben