RE: Aluminum tape on toroids? What about the sticky side being nonconducting?

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

Original poster: "Lau, Gary" <gary.lau-at-hp-dot-com> 

Your point is well taken.  While it won't affect the capacitance, the fact 
is that adjacent strips of AL tape are not all in contact with each 
other.  I covered the AL duct for my mini coil with paper Mache to smooth 
it out, then covered that with AL tape.  I observed several places on the 
surface with small arcs occurring between adjacent tape strips, despite 
large areas of overlap.  Surely this diminishes performance.  I corrected 
the problem by adding a foil tape-covered wooden center disk somewhat 
smaller than the hole in the toroid, and pressing a conductive EMI gasket 
between the disk and the toroid, to short together all of the strips.

Regards, Gary Lau
MA, USA


Original poster: Phlunktfysics101-at-aol-dot-com

I see lots of people using aluminum tape on their toroids.  My toroid is
made from aluminum duct riveted to a water heater pan, and I'd love to
smooth it out with aluminum tape.  But this tape has an adhesive backing,
making it nonconductive on the backside.  With no electrical conduction
between the aluminum side of the tape and the aluminum duct, what effect
will this have on performance?  And couldn't the adhesive act like a
dielectric and add more capacitance between the two aluminum surfaces (tape
and duct)?  It must not really matter, but I figure I had better ask the
pros before wasting money on AL tape.

Thanks!
Jack