Re: Objections to Steel Wire?

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Original poster: "Brian by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <ka1bbg-at-webryders-dot-net>

Hi, maybe i can answer a few questions and put this to rest. I built a TC
coil using 1/4 inch copper coated steel wire for the primary. secondary was
the usual 6:1 about 1600 turns. mmc of 3 groups of 11 .056 Panasonic caps.
It performed only fair with sparks to about 20 inches, but it was hard to
tune and there was no sweet spot. without changing anything but the wire for
the primary, 1/4 inch pipe with same turns/spacing set up and tuning was
easy, there was a sweet spot about 1/16 of a turn and sparks were over 30
inches......i then tried a piece of iron wire about 5/16 in diameter in the
same set up as above and got poor tuneup, difficult to tune and maximum was
only 18 inches. The next generation was to go to a 15 turn coil using 1/8 by
1/4 inch rectangular copper wire with a tighter spacing. Now the tuning was
great with a narrow sweet spot, and with some fine tuning i have captured 42
inch sparks with a camera. The iron wire has too much resistance, hence
lower primary current and less sparc length. I see our local hardware has
1/4 inch solid copper for electrical ground at $.41 per foot. And refer
tubing i see a 50 foot coil for under 32 bucks. I myself use wire from
transformers and or from auto starters...
I burn the coils out in the stove and dunk them into a bucket of water. it
takes some work to straiten this wire but the end result is a primary that
can draw good amps. contact me off line for further info
ka1bbg-at-webryders-dot-net cul brian f.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 01, 2002 10:15 AM
Subject: Re: Objections to Steel Wire?


> Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<ajones18-at-bellsouth-dot-net>
>
> In <4.1.20020930205942.00a2e460-at-pop.dnvr.qwest-dot-net>, on 09/30/02
>    at 08:59 PM, "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com> said:
>
> >Original poster: "davep by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
> ><davep-at-quik-dot-com>
>
> >There are different views on steel wire.  In general, copper, etc,
> >are cheap enough that using them saves argument.
>
> >
> >Intellectual curiosity makes me wonder what the actual impact to
> >performance would be, if tried...
> >(I'm not about to, and not proposing that anyone else do so...)
>
> > best
> > dwp
>
>
> I used some 1/2" steel banding once on a bi-polar coil with tacks to
> attach it to the wooden dowels primary support. It worked fine back
> then with the tiny neon transformer and terrible capacitors I had.
> Then changed the primary to a copper tubing spiral, pancake-style on
> edge, and output was the same. About 3" between terminals. The banding
> primary caused tiny sparks on the secondary and the whole
> primary-secondary unit had a blue glow around it. Looked fantastic.
>
> Alan
> --
> http://personalpages.bellsouth-dot-net/a/j/ajones18/index.html
>
>
>
>