Re: MOT-powered coil questions

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

Original poster: "Gregory Hunter by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <ghunter31014-at-yahoo-dot-com>

Howdy Captain,

Yes, I've been following the 4kv mini coil threads,
and I'm aware of your activities. However, you are
comparing a gerbil to an alligator. 4kvac at 20ma is a
very different animal than 4kvac at 400-700ma. Have
you ever actually fired a 4kvac MOT coil with a static
gap? I have, and I learned that it eats spark gaps
like an arc welder eats welding rods, and it subverts
every effort to achieve quenching. One of the geeks
managed to fire a 4kvac MOT coil by using a speedy
ARSG with very narrow gaps, but his rig is the
exception, not the norm, and probably not a good setup
for a beginner to attempt to emulate. Bumping the
voltage up by adding a level shifter to a pair of MOTs
makes everything about 10X easier and results in a
satisfying, well-behaved Tesla coil. On the other
hand, I suppose our new list member could ballast his
MOT pair back to 20ma and build a mini coil!

 > I disagree whole heartedly.  Even 3kVAC is enough
 > for a reliable spark-gap
 > driven tesla coil.  Plus many of us, Ed Wingate,
 > Steve Ward, Gary Lau, and
 > others have built
 > very successful tesla coils utilizing only 4kVAC
 > transformers.  Theres more
 > than enough margin for reliable operation.
 >
 > The Captain
 >

 >  > Only 2? Are you aware that these will only
 > develop
 >  > about 4kvac? This is barely marginal for a spark
 > gap
 >  > coil.

=====
Gregory R. Hunter

http://hot-streamer-dot-com/greg