Re: Coil sensitive to primary tapping

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

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

In a message dated 1/23/04 10:25:58 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
tesla-at-pupman-dot-com writes:

>Guys,
>
>My coil is extemely sensitive to the primary tap. It refuses to make any
>sparks if you move it off the last coil or so. It works best on the very end
>of the last one.
>
>Currently it is a 9kV/60Ma, 15 turns, 30X6.5"secondary, 7x24" dryer duct
>toroid, 0.025uf/12kV capacitance
>
>Any ideas?
>
>Aaron
>


Aaron,

Well how do you know you have enough primary turns?
Maybe you need another turn or two to get the best sparks.
Have you extended the turns using some scrap wire to test this?
You didn't mention the spark length.  Are they wimpy?
Also a smaller toroid would let you tune inward and let
the sparks break out more easily, etc.  I'm not saying
you need a smaller toroid though.

As a test you can place a long metal rod over the top of the coil
as a breakout point to see if it can then break out at other
primary tap points.  This would tell you that the toroid size
is preventing breakout when the tuning is too far off, which is
to be expected if that's the case, etc.

John