Re: Wire for Tesla Coil Tank Circuit

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

Original poster: "Steven Ward by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <srward16-at-hotmail-dot-com>

Hi Dan,

In my experience with a 450w coil awhile ago, going from 12awg to 13 
conductor litz was a very noticable difference!!  I got an additional ~15% 
more spark lenght from this little coil.  Now im working on a coil with 2X 
your PSU(15/120), and im definitely NOT using anything as wimpy as 14awg, 
really 6awg is pretty good but litz may be even better if its large enough.  
Just to further my point, i have noticed that anything less than what the 
rest of the coil is wired with gets warm!  For example: while experimenting 
with off axis inductors, the small 14awg wire i used for the inductor got 
HOT from a small 550watt coil!!  The rest of the coil was litz and copper 
tubing and the 14awg was junk compared to another inductor made from 1/4 
copper.  Also, i tried out a John Freau design trick with making a primary 
with 10awg but more turns.  The entire primary coil got warm after about 2-3 
minutes of running, but I will say that this primary was great!!  It really 
squeezed a lot out of the small coil, about 30" from a 12/40(modified) and a 
static gap only!  So over all i do not think that you should use that 14awg. 
  Go for the 6awg, it looks like you already did quite a bit of work so 
whats some extra connection changes, go for it!

Steve Ward.


>From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
>To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
>Subject: Wire for Tesla Coil Tank Circuit
>Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2002 11:38:26 -0600
>
>Original poster: "Mccauley, Daniel H by way of Terry Fritz 
><twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <daniel.h.mccauley-at-lmco-dot-com>
>
>
>
>I'm in the process of choosing my wire for use in hooking up components in
>my primary tank circuit.
>
>For a small coil (15kv/60ma) my current choices are:
>
>1.  60kV, 14AWG High Voltage wire
>
>2.  6 AWG Welding Cable
>
>I'd rather use the 60kV, 14AWG High Voltage wire as most of my components
>already have the proper terminals
>to use for this, as the 6 AWG requires much larger terminals which i would
>need to refit.
>
>However, I realize the low-inductance 6 AWG may better fit the bill.  But,
>if both wires will do the job adequately in the small coil like mine, i'll
>go with the high voltage wire.
>
>What are your thoughts???
>
>Thanks
>
>Dan
>
>
>