RE: Stumped at first light

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

Original poster: "Chris by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <chrislj-at-earthlink-dot-net>



-----Original Message-----
From: Tesla list [mailto:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 1:36 PM
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: RE: Stumped at first light


Original poster: "Mccauley, Daniel H by way of Terry Fritz
<twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <daniel.h.mccauley-at-lmco-dot-com>

.066

I already see two possible problems:

1.  Your primary doesn't seem to have enough turns.  You should probably
go for about 12-14 turns ideally.
      Also, 1/4" of spacing between turns should be plenty for this coil.
This will keep a 12-14 turn primary
      to a respectible size.

2.  Strike Rail - Although you didn't mention it, you need to make sure
your strike rail IS NOT continuous.  It should
      have a 2-4 inch gap.  Remember, you are basically added a short
circuit to your magnetic circuit with a continous
      spark rail.

3.  Capacitor Size - For a 12000V, 30mA -at- 60Hz NST, you should be
looking for around a 0.066uF capacitor.

Dan

Hey Dan, not to judge but .066uf is a very large over shoot. Probably a
typo should have been .0066.

Chris




     My class has built most of our coil and I am a little sceptical
about our capacitance calculations. We would very much like to fire it
up, but I think it needs a little fine tuning. Here is what we built:
feed-12000v NST -at- 30ma, adjustable spark gap built out of copper tubing,
The primary is 6 turns of 1/4" copper tubing with a 3/4" gap between
turns, the secondary is 1000 turns of 22 ga. magnet wire on 4" pvc with
a heighth of 26 5/8". We have an 8" gazing ball or 4" aluminum flex duct
for a topload. We built a strike rail around the primary out of  #2 bare
copper. Will this work, and what kind of capacitors do we need. Any help
would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.