Re: first coil

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

Original poster: "tmoorezz" <tmoorezz-at-adelphia-dot-net> 

Dan,

     See I know what I am talking about, and so dose Dr. Resonance, I don't
mean to contradict you, but it is true wire gauge dose have a significant
impact on a coil not only with performance but also power processing
ability.  Maybe you could elaborate on your coils design and that might
explain why your coils tank wire doesn't heat up. I my self keep connections
as short as possible, check out my mini coil
http://www.hot-streamer-dot-com/nolan/minicoil/minicoil.htm my tank wire total
was under two feet total and actually it was two 18awg wires in parallel
which is actually slightly better than 12awg wire. What's your max streamer
discharge length?, what's you tank cap? and how wide do you have your spark
gap set to and what kind is it?, how many gaps and is it quenched? And could
you elaborate on all the rest of your coils parts and could you be as
specific as possible? Thanks cause I am very curious to know why your coil
can use 12awg and be fine, and maybe I could help archive a better spark
length. If your performance isn't what it should be then perhaps you should
think about using a thicker tank wire. Note 12awg has about 6.6 times more
resistance than 4awg wire, and also 4awg can handle 6.6 times more current
than 12awg, here check it out at this tesla list archive email I just found
for you http://www.pupman-dot-com/listarchives/1998/April/msg00222.html . I only
wish to help people archive the best out put for there tesla coil set up.

Peace,
Nolan

---- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 11:45 PM
Subject: Re: first coil


 > Original poster: "Dr. Resonance" <resonance-at-jvlnet-dot-com>
 >
 >
 > The basic laws of electrical circuits still apply, even Ohm's law has an
 > effect on RF currents.  If you are trying to stuff 200 Amps through a 12
AWG
 > wire it will retard the current somewhat even if the time period is
measured
 > in microseconds.  It's the current that is responsible for creating the
 > magnetic field, not the potential.
 >
 > Dan may have the same output potential but if he measured the current in
the
 > output I'm certain he would have noticed a decrease in the secondary
current
 > with the smaller wire.  We did a similar experiment many years ago and
used
 > 4 sec. shots of the discharge spark in a dark room.  The smaller wire has
a
 > much less brighter output spark than the larger wire even though the
sparks
 > had approx the same length.  They were noticeably thinner but only to the
 > camera -- not the naked eye.
 >
 > Bill Wysock and I did a similar experiment back in the early 80's.  Bill
 > rigged a large coil to trigger a huge capacitor to discharge into the
 > streamer in an attempt to produce a fat, thick spark.  To our eyes and
ears
 > we couldn't tell the difference, but after the film was developed, the
huge
 > fat 3 inch dia. discharge was present.  It didn't sound any louder or seem
 > to us to be any brighter but the picture told the story -- it was very fat
 > and thick.
 >
 > Even though the pulses are there for a short period of time, during those
 > short periods of time in a small gauge wire the current pulse is going to
be
 > somewhat reduced by the resistance of the wire. In a series circuit
whatever
 > element that has the most resistance will limit the peak current that can
 > pass through the circuit.  Why not error on the side of least resistance?
 > Lost performance will never be missed by anyone of doesn't know it's lost.
 >
 > We use 4 AWG wire on all of our NST powered coils.  This is somewhat
 > engineering overkill, but I would say that you should use at least 6 or 8
 > AWG for your primary wire.  12 or 14 AWG isn't good engineering practice
 > just like running a MMC cap at it's rated DC voltage is pushing your luck.
 > Why waste an evening trying to figure out which cap died when you don't
have
 > to?
 >
 > Overengineer a bit -- it's good for the soul and you make the electrons
very
 > very happy.
 >
 > Dr. Resonance
 >
 >  >
 >  > Sorry Nolan, I disagree.  12 AWG wire will work perfectly fine with a
 >  > 15kV/60mA.  In fact, a year ago I performed a test in which I would
 > compare
 >  > output of my
 >  > 15kV/60mA coil with using 4 AWG stranded welding wire (the orange
stuff),
 >  > and using 14 AWG HV wire.  In both tests, I got exactly the same output
 > from
 >  > my coil.  There was no difference period!  Now if you were using 12 or
14
 >  > AWG wire and your wire lengths were like 5 feet plus, then thats
 > different.
 >  > But if you keep your connections as short
 >  > as possible, 12-14 AWG wire will work fine with no decrease in
 > performance.
 >
 >