Re: my coils not up to snuff

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

Original poster: "J. B. Weazle McCreath" <weazle-at-hurontel.on.ca> 


At 05:16 PM 12/12/03 -0700, you wrote:

 >Original poster: "Sam W." <HAZAA_69-at-hotmail-dot-com>
 >
 >----- Original Message -----
 >From: <mailto:HAZAA_69-at-hotmail-dot-com>Sam W.
 >To: <mailto:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
 >Sent: Monday, December 08, 2003 3:08 PM
 >
 >I have a coil running on a 12/60 nst, 4.5" x 30" secondary w/21 AWG
 >magnet wire.  Primary is 8 turns of 10 AWG insulated wire
 >Spark gap is a single static with no pressurized air for quenching
 >
<SNIP>

Hi Sam, Coilers,

It sounds like you're in the ballpark with most of your coil setup,
but a copper tubing primary wouldn't hurt at all.  You definately
should improve on your spark gap.  I recall when I built my first
coil years ago (before I knew of this list) that I was initially
disappointed with its perfomance.  One night I tried blowing some
air over the single static gap, and WAH LA, I got a very marked
increase in streamer length.  Have a look at my static gap design.
It can be easily built with off the shelf parts and hand tools.
I'm using it with a pole transformer (about 2.5 KVA input) on my
coil and it works great, but it would work just as well with a
lower power coil.  If you build it you'll have a gap that will
handle higher power levels for your next coil.

73, Weazle, VE3EAR/VE3WZL

Details of my "Hyperbaric Gap" and Tesla coil are at:
http://www.hurontel.on.ca/~weazle