Re: Tesla coil grounding and other questions

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

Original poster: Esondrmn-at-aol-dot-com 

In a message dated 2/15/04 5:28:47 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
tesla-at-pupman-dot-com writes:


>Hello Gary. Your name has come up alot! More than one person has given you
>name as a site to check out! I did check out the mini-table top coil
>section of your site and I must say the pictures and text are excellent!
>Very well done.
>
>As you may have gathered from my other post I plan to start from scratch
>and build a 4 or 4.25" secondary coil using my 12kv NST. Looks like I will
>buy some MMC caps on ebay if I can find them or from the Geek site.
>
>I found a site that explained why a helical coil isn't as good as a spiral
>coil. At first it sounds like you would want max coupling to get the best
>energy transfer but I guess that doesn't take into account charge times,
>field collapse times, etc.
>
>The 1/4" tubing sounds like a good idea but is 25' enough? I don't know how
>to figure out how much pipe is needed for x turns because it is a spiral.
>I'll have to experiment with that.
>
>Thanks for your input.
>
>JC


JC,

If my calculations are correct, a 50' roll of .25" tubing with .25" spacing 
between turns and an inside diameter of 6.25" should just provide about 10 
turns.  I would advise splicing on more and going with 12 to 14 turns.  You 
will loose a foot or so from the 50' length if you bend the free end of the 
inside turn so it goes down under the primary for connection to the cap and 
gap which most of us usually mount down below.

Ed Sonderman