Re: hello all

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

Original poster: "Justin Hays by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <pyrotrons2000-at-yahoo-dot-com>

Hi All,

Sounds like a decent first setup, certainly better than mine when I
first got into it. You don't want to hear about my first setup!

I think as long as you know your bottle capacitor value and have a
good idea where everything will tune, you should be fine. I would
start with a nice healthy gap setting of about 1/4" at first then let
'er rip wide open after you get everything tuned. I suggest a gap
spacing of no more than 3/8" for your 12kV transformer.

It was stated earlier and I agree: tuning is the toughest part at
first. If your coil is designed correctly (with enough primary turns,
etc.), you will find tuning to be a fun and easy task, just a matter
of clipping onto a wire. But if you can't find a peak in sparklength
somewhere along the primary coil,,,you will need to re-evaluate your
system.

With a bottle cap, decent spark gap, good primary coil geomettry, and
a properly sized topload: 12-15" sparks would be a good maximum
figure to shoot for. If you get the bottle cap out of there and use
something else, you could get another 6 inches.

Good luck,

Justin Hays
KC5PNP
Email: justin-at-hvguy-dot-com
Website: www.hvguy-dot-com

_