Re: Secondary failure modes

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

Original poster: "Peter Terren" <pterren1-at-iinet-dot-net.au> 

I am interested to know other peoples experiences of failure of the
secondary.  My own experience is that local breakdown between turns occurs
as a local interturn problem or secondary to a racing arc initiaing
breakdown on one wire which then places the adjacent turn under stress. This
appears to result from coupling that is too high such as in my 4 inch coil
with inverted conical primary.   I have not had any problem with breakdown
on the inside of the PVC former.

I have a few ideas for a secondary with better performance to allow higher
secondary to sparklength ratios. I hope to begin construction soon after I
have dealt with my other 22 high priority projects. Details when (and IF) I
get results.

Cheers
Peter (Tesla Downunder)
http://members.iinet-dot-net.au/~pterren