RE: Tesla coil grounding and other questions

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

Original poster: "Luke" <Bluu-at-cox-dot-net> 

Is 0.25" the average distance coilers use for primary wire spacing?  Or
is there a rule of thumb used?  Does power level play a roll in the
spacing?  Yes I know that there does need to be enough room for what
ever method is being used for connecting to the coil.

thanx

Luke Galyan
Bluu-at-cox-dot-net

-----Original Message-----
From: Tesla list [mailto:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2004 12:11 PM
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: Tesla coil grounding and other questions

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