Re: magnifiers, bipolar coils, etc.

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

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

In a message dated 1/18/04 2:11:42 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
tesla-at-pupman-dot-com writes:

>And now we come to the math, I have never built a maggie and i'm completely
>lost on how to do the calculations on one, should L3-C3 be tuned to the same
>Frequecy as L2-C2,  wich in turn is tuned to L1-C1?
>
>Definitely need to read up a bit on this...
>


Joel,

The way maggies are usually built, very little math is needed.
The primary is tuned to the combined secondary and resonator
L and C.  In other words the secondary and resonator behave
as a single coil in a sense as far as tuning is concerned.  From
a practical tuning perspective, the primary will tune a little lower
in frequency than it would with just the resonator alone.  This is
because the secondary adds a little inductance to the
system since the secondary generally has a low inductance
relative to the resonator.

Folks generally select a value for example 30mH for the resonator,
then use about 5mH for the secondary.  The ratio is not real
critical for typical maggies.  I've used ratios from 10:1 to 3:1, and
didn't see much real-world difference.  You do want to have most
of the inductance in the resonator.  After it's built, just tune for
maximum output spark length.  Low ratios will result in more
corona on the transmission line.

To use Antonio's method of trying to trap all the energy in
the resonator at one time for higher efficiency would require
a more precise design.

John