Project Tesla, was Streamer colour

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Original poster: FutureT@xxxxxxx 


More info on Golka's project tesla at Wendover Utah.  This is from
Richard Hull's videotape #49.  This segment of the tape was shot at
one of Ed Wingate's Teslathon's.  It is actually a video of a slide-show
given by Jim Speer at the Teslathon.  Jim worked with Golka on the
coil during 1976 during the early tuning of the coil.  I was there in
person during this slide show at the Teslathon as was Richard Hull,
Harry Goldman, Dave Sharpe, and many other coilers.  My memories of
the slide-show details were hazy so I reviewed Richard's videotape.

-- The first photo shows a photo of Bob Golka with others including
Agnes Moon who was the wife of the fellow who manufactured the Moon
hubcaps.

-- Another photo shows the diesel generators on a truck.  520 amps rated.

--  A large 44kV, 2.27A rated pole transformer was used.

--  The rotary gap rotor blade was an actual buzzsaw blade.  This was
changed in 1981 or earlier to an aluminum break-wheel.  The buzzsaw blade
was said to work poorly.  A 40HP motor drove the saw blade via an
insulated belt.

--  The 0.0175uf cap bank leaked, so oil lines were connected to the caps
to keep refilling them.

--  Photo of the SF6 quench gap.  Pressure gauges can be seen.

--  Photo of the extra coil which was made from black PVC pipes which
were formed into an open framework.   There were 120 turns of #6 wire
on the extra coil.  The turns were near the top of the extra coil structure.

--  At some point the aircraft hanger where they were working was turned
over the to city.  It was said that the city charged Golka around $1000/month
which Golka could not afford, and this killed the project and shut it down.

--  Sometimes the extra coil feed line arced to ground.  They were getting
a lot of corona off the feed line.  THe coil still ran very poorly at this 
point.
By 1981 or so the coil was running very well.  A spectacular photo is
shown.  Golka told Jim that the coil ran poorly previously due to a
commutation problem.  Golka didn't want to give any details Jim said.
Richard Hull suggested that the sparks appeared to be about 24 feet
long.  The sparks were always very thick and bright when the coil
was running, and there were a large number of simultaneous streamers.

--  At some point, something caught on fire and the fire trucks were
called to save the coil from destruction.

-- At one point Bob convinced a transient worker to don a metal
chain-mail suit and walk around near the extra coil while being
battered by the full fury of the sparks.  The fellow said he felt tingling
up to his arms, but Bob wondered if this was due to the spark energy
or due to the fellow's alcoholic drinking binge the night before.

--  Richard Hull talked about how Bill Wysock popularized the idea
of using toroids on Tesla coils.  Harry Goldman suggested that Dick
Aurant had something to do with Bill Wysock adopting the use of
toroids on coils.

--  They discuss how Golka went to Yugoslavia three times and got
permission twice from president Tito to enter the Tesla Museum in
Belgrade and study Tesla's papers.  The third time, Tito did not give
him permission.

--  There were various other photos and comments that I didn't mention
above during and on the slide show.

Cheers,
John Freau