newbie question - spark gap and toroid

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

Original poster: "ho \[shu\] huang" <shuhuang-at-singnet-dot-com.sg> 

Hey!

I've got my tesla coil to work but I've got a couple of quick questions for 
you pros out there: -

1. My SG spark gap's made from aluminium curtain rail, not copper pipe. The 
rail is flat, so it's easier to mount. Does it matter? My coil works, but 
I'm not sure if aluminium hinders performance in any way.

2. Does it matter that air isn't blown directly at the sparks? Do the 
sparks require a lot of air to be "quenched", or will a bit of moving air 
be enough? In other words, is more wind better?

My spark gap (pic here: http://web.singnet-dot-com.sg/~shuhuang/spark_gap3.jpg 
) sparks at the ends of the rails, which is sort of shielded by the 10mm 
thick plastic support. I can easily reconfigure it so that the sparks get 
most of the breeze from the fan, but I'm wondering if it's worth the 
effort. The fans blow, rather than suck, BTW.

3. I used 2 aluminium wok covers joined together 
(http://web.singnet-dot-com.sg/~shuhuang/tesla_coil_lab.jpg ), ~210mm wide and 
320mm in diameter, as a toroid but I suspect a traditioanl toroid might 
work better. Believe it or not, I'm actually having a hard time flexible 
drainage pipe. It's apparently not used very often any more...where I live 
(SIngapore) anyway. I came across the pool float toroid design on a 
webpage, and I've found one on sale cheap. It's 23" in diameter and 8" 
thick. Is that too big a toroid for my 15kV 30mA, 90mm 900 turns AWG 24 
wire secondary coil, set up?

thanks!

Shu










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