HV Cables

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

Original poster: "Ian McLean" <ianmm-at-optusnet-dot-com.au> 

Hi all,

I am wondering what is the general consensus out there amongst coilers as to
what makes the best cable for HV.

For some time, I have been using RG-8 coaxial (Thick Ethernet), with the
outer braided shield removed.  This has excellent dialectric strength and is
rated for more than 35kV.  I believe it is, or has been in the past, been
widely used as HV transmission cable?  I managed to get a reasonable length
of used cable from an ex-employee when they moved their building trunk cable
over from this to fibre.

However, the thick, heavy, yellow RG-8 coax is becoming very difficult to
obtain and expensive, and I am wondering about alternatives.  I have looked
through Tesla archives, I did not find much, except that someone mentioned
the use of RG213 coaxial, but according to the spec's, this cable is only
rated for 3.7kV RMS.  It is also not solid core, but multi-stranded.

I have been toying with two ideas:
1) Just buy some Neon cable.
2) Using thick guage enamelled copper, with my own insulation around it (a
few layers of heatshrink maybe).

I believe, from my research, that for HV, esp. at relatively low current,
solid copper conductors are best (comments welcomed).  I have tried
multi-stranded copper (high current DC) before for 15kV-at-60mA (NST ouput),
but the HV tends to "buzz" inside the cable, and you lose most of the power
to what I believe must be coronal losses within the strands of the cable.

I am sure this is an old topic, so I apologise for that.

All commented welcomed.

Rgs
Ian