RE: Secondary coil form material

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

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

Thanx
PVC it is
In fact I happen to have just bought myself some 6" PVC drain pipe with
a wall thickness just under 1/8"

Glad to hear I wont suffer much from this choice.

Luke Galyan
Bluu-at-cox-dot-net

-----Original Message-----
From: Tesla list [mailto:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
Sent: Friday, January 16, 2004 5:29 PM
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: Secondary coil form material

Original poster: Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-twfpowerelectronics-dot-com>

Hi Luke,

At 01:20 PM 1/16/2004, you wrote:
 >What are some of the better commonly used coil for materials.
 >PVC is what I would like to use simply for availability.
 >But from what I have read PVC has a high dissipation factor.

Not a problem.  Any plastic is fine.  But do avoid black plastics that
may
contain carbon.  Some drain pipe has a soft black layer on it that is
filled with carbon and can short out the whole coil.  Stick with the
white,
green, or other non black plastics.  Any of the clear plastics are fine
too
but cost a bunch more.

 >
 >Has any one designed a system with PVC and the changed no other aspects
of
 >it but to wind an identical secondary on say Polyethylene or some other

 >material?

"i" have not.  But we can measure the "Q" of a coil and plastics are
very
low loss.  Below what we would care about.

 >
 >If so what were the results?
 >
 >How much would my arc out put suffer if I used PVC?

Not at all.  The cardboard "sonotubes" used for concrete forms do have
much
higher loss and can decrease spark length about 5%.  People like it
because
it is so easy and cheap to get though.  But it is vastly more lossy than

any plastic.

If you are going to coat the tube with say paint or something.  I would
test it first to be sure the coating will not eat up the plastic.

Cheers,

          Terry

 >
 >Luke Galyan
 >Bluu-at-cox-dot-net
 >