RE: Improving my poorly designed coil

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

Original poster: "Dwight Harm" <dwighth-at-traxsoft-dot-com> 

Chris,
We haven't done as good as Greg Hunter (60" - WOW!), only 24" from 2 MOTs,
but still working on it.  Anyway, I'd say there's a good chance your gap is
NOT quenching most of the time.  We found that just adding a strong blower
(exhaust from a portable vacuum cleaner) close to the gap (2-3" away)
improved output from around 6" to 24"!

What's your cap? We've got 3 bucket caps (39 bottles), measured 46nf at time
of best sparks.

Dwight.

 > -----Original Message-----
 > From: Tesla list [mailto:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
 > Sent: Monday, October 13, 2003 9:23 AM
 > To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
 > Subject: Improving my poorly designed coil
 >
 > Original poster: "Chris the great" <downnessisgoingup-at-hotmail-dot-com>
 >
 > Well, I got my first coil running.  It is ill designed, has a horrible
 > primary and topload, but has hooked me onto coiling for life.
 > Of course, it is only running on 2 MOTs, which is very dissapointing (I'll
 > get more soon!) running through the simple voltage doubler they use in the
 > microwaves, giving me 60 12000 volts pulses every second.  This is giving
 > me a max spark of 8 inches :(.  Also, I am getting corona forming from the
 > center of my secondary to the strike rail.
 > So, I need suggestions for improving my piece of junk.
 >
 > Capacitor- around 0.015 to 0.02uF.  I'm not sure, because I don't have a
 > capacitance meter.
 >
...
 > Spark gap is two bolts spaced at near max distance, inside a plastic box
 > about 5 cubic inches.  This muffles the sound a bit, so you can really
hear
 > how loud the streamers are.  No problems with this, getting good clean
 > firing and good quenching.