Re: Aluminum tape on toroids? What about the sticky side being nonconducting? Not a problem!

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

Original poster: "Scott Hanson" <huil888-at-surfside-dot-net> 

Harold -

I have made a number of small toroids for desktop coils, using blow-molded
polyethylene "pallet cushions" as forms. When the self-adhesive aluminum
tape has been applied to the form, with adjacent strips overlapped by about
1/4" and the tape firmly burnished against the surface of the form, adjacent
foil strips most definitely DO NOT make electrical contact with each other.
This is easily demonstrated using an ohmmeter. My small toroids use 26
individual almond-shaped foil tape segments, and on two toroids checked no
two adjacent foils were in electrical contact.

When the coil is operated at very low power levels, before there is any
actual streamer breakout, the toroid will be literally covered with hundreds
of tiny sparks along the edges of the foil strips. As input power level is
increased, and streamer breakout begins, the small sparks at the foil edges
disappear.

Regards,
Scott Hanson



----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2004 10:39 AM
Subject: Re: Aluminum tape on toroids? What about the sticky side being
nonconducting?


 > Original poster: "Harold Weiss" <hweiss-at-new.rr-dot-com>
 >
 > Jack,
 >
 > If you realy want to spend money, you can get the copper tape from 3M that
 > has conductive adhesive.  The aluminium tape when smoothed over the torrid
 > does make metal to metal contact on it's edges.  It may not be the
greatest
 > but it is good enough for government work.
 >
 > David E Weiss
 >
 >  > 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
 >  >
 >  >
 >  >
 >
 >
 > ---
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 >
 >