Re: First light at 4500VA

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

Original poster: "G by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <bog-at-cinci.rr-dot-com>

It sounds like a nice run, Winston.

Steel has a high resistance to RF, and this is most certainly why the 
electrodes heat so quickly. Switching to tungsten or even brass will fix 
the overheating and give more efficiency.

I am sure tungsten could have threads ground into it, but for the extra 
time and material, it will probably better to fashion a setscrew-type 
holder for the rods. I drilled my recent RSG to a snug fit with the 
electrode, then bought DuBro brand 'wheel collars' from a nearby model 
airplane store. They fit snugly on both sides of the disk and prevent the 
electrodes from slipping side to side with a screw. Others on the list have 
had luck using a drilled-out bolt with a setscrew in the bolt head, or even 
a setscrew tapped in from the edge of the disk to the electrode hole.

Good luck!
Gregory


>Hi All,
>
>         First, my questions:  Will tungsten RSG electrodes give me bigger
>sparks than the steel ones I'm using?
>
>         How easy/hard is it to thread "pure" tungsten welding rods???
>
>
>         I fired my new 6" coil with all of its parts for the first time last
>night.  After tuning and fiddling with the rotary phasing (it still
>isn't quite right), I was getting two simultanious 6.5' ground strikes!
>After about 5 seconds of this, the rotary begins to overheat, and output
>dwindles to a single 5-6' streamer, with occasional ground strikes.  A
>15 second run brings the stationary electrodes to a nice, bright red
>heat ;-(.

snip

>Any comments are appreciated.
>
>Thanks,
>Winston K.



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