RE: First light for my first coil today !

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Original poster: Jim Lux <jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net> 


>--Original Message-----
>From: Tesla list [mailto:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
>Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 10:05 AM
>To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
>Subject: First light for my first coil today !
>
>Original poster: "Ian McLean" <ianmm-at-optusnet-dot-com.au>
>
>Hi all,
>
>First light for my first coil, whoa hoa !!!!
>
>Specs:
>
>
>No proper RF ground yet - I have the copper clad grounding rods, just
>have
>to pound them in 6 feet.  Just used an overhead metal beam in my
>workshop
>for RF ground for the first test.
>
>No proper toroid yet - I still have to get the ducting.  For now, using
>a 2
>1/2 inch diameter foam "noodle" (those swimming floaty things), that I
>found
>in my parents garage, rolled into a toroid about 20 inches in diameter,
>taped, and covered with aluminium foil - pretty dodgy I know.  Resting
>about
>3 inches above top of secondary form with a wooden plank.  Even dodgier,
>I
>know ;)


>At first power, I got streamers from about 1/2 power input onwards, and
>I
>was getting 3 foot streamers at about 3/4 power input (i can hardly
>believe
>it, but it's true :-) !!!! ), to the nearest metal object - a table vice
>sitting on my workshop table, and to the hanging RF ground wire (as I
>said,
>tied to a beam overhead), and lots of 1 or so inch surface crackly
>streamers
>all over the toroid.  The streamers are not very thick yet, quite thin
>and
>wispy.  No arc overs, flash overs, corona, or racing sparks were noted
>(good
>thing).  I was surprised at the hits to the RF ground wire, as this is
>GTO-15 cable.  Oh well, I guess that insulation cannot even begin to
>hold
>off TC voltages !!  The gap is VERY loud and VERY bright - sounds like a
>machine gun on full-auto.  I turned the power up a bit further, which
>triggered the safety gap.


Bigger diameter noodle (or flex ducting or whatever) and smoothing the tape 
out will get rid of a lot of the "short fuzzy" sparks. (and make your main 
sparks longer, because you're not wasting power on the fuzz).

For a lashup ground, you'd probably be better off just laying the ground 
rods on the floor under the coil and hooking the ground to that.