Re: New coil not working...

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

Original poster: Chris Cudahy <ccudahy-at-yahoo-dot-com> 

  I'll have a go at this with the theory that comments
from someone with not much experience is better than
good information later :)

 > -6 beer bottle leyden caps in a series with a
 > close-to-saturated NaCl(aq)

  Beer bottle caps have a high voltage rating and with
a  small amount of capacitance. They should be wired
in parallel, and you might need more than 6 of them to
resonate with less than 10 turns on the primary.

 > -a primary coil of three braided enamelled copper
 > magnet wires of #16 gage
 > in 10 flat spiderweb coils about 1/4" apart with an
 > inside diametr of 4" and
 > an outside diameter of I think 12"

  How are you connecting the primary coil to the rest
of the circuit? The connection through the enamel
might not be good, or it might only be conducting
through one of the wires. One bare

  Do you have a good RF ground connection? Typical is
one or more 10 foot rods driven into the ground, or
some burred plates with a couple sq. foot of area or
more. Don't use your house electrical ground for this!

  Have you tried pulling an arc from the torus to a
grounding wire on a (long) stick? The coil is probably
far out of tune and not working effectively because of
that. If you don't have equipment to check the tuning
you can find it adjusting the tap point on the primary
and measuring how much of a spark you get from the
torus to the grounding rod. Be sure to discharge
everything before touching the primary circuit!

Hope this helps,
Chris




--- Tesla list <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com> wrote:
 > Original poster: "Greg McCoy" <gemccoy-at-nbnet.nb.ca>
 >
 > Well I just made a brand new tesla coil, plugged it
 > in and it doesn't workl
 > I get nice blue sparks at the spark gaps and a
 > fairly loud electricity
 > noise, but no discharge. First off I would ask for
 > any trouble shooting
 > sites in general that might help?
 >
 > Now for the specifics: I used the wiring shown on
 > this page:
 > http://www.deepfriedneon-dot-com/tesla_frame10.html
 > except that instead of
 > grounding one end of the secondary circuit (as I
 > have not yet constructed an
 > adequate gorund) I bent it up near the toroid.
 >
 > I have
 > -a 9KV 30 mA transformer
 > -6 beer bottle leyden caps in a series with a
 > close-to-saturated NaCl(aq)
 > solution inside and metal duct tape outside and a
 > layer of oil ranging from
 > 1/2 - 1 1/2 thick with a brass rod sticking into the
 > solution
 > -a primary coil of three braided enamelled copper
 > magnet wires of #16 gage
 > in 10 flat spiderweb coils about 1/4" apart with an
 > inside diametr of 4" and
 > an outside diameter of I think 12"
 > -a secondary coil of ~1000 turns #24 gage enamelled
 > copper magnet wire
 > sitting in the centre of the primary coil about 3"-
 > 4" above it
 > -3 spark gaps in a series each of two small brass
 > "L" brakets facing like
 > this: "_| |_" one of which has an adjustable screw
 > -a toroidal discharge terminal of bendable heating
 > duct (ends held together
 > by a small piece of wood inside screwed into each
 > end around two aluminium
 > pie plates with theri bottoms together.
 > -a currently ungrounded strike rail of ~#18 gage
 > soft iron wire
 >
 > Now I know a host of things could be wrong, and I
 > haven't had time to play
 > with things such as the number of capacitors, the
 > distance of the S.G.
 > screws or the height of the secondary coil above the
 > primary, but this
 > project is due on Monday, and I wanted to present
 > this to you to give you
 > ample time to respond before then, in the case that
 > all I know amounts to
 > nothing. ;) So if anything I am doing jumps out at
 > you as being wrong,
 > please tell me.
 >
 > Thanks in Advance,
 > Greg
 >
 >