Re: This Hobby's Expensive - Tosh! No,my good man, it isn't!

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: Davetracer@xxxxxxx 

In a message dated 4/14/2005 8:36:48 P.M. Mountain Daylight Time, 
tesla@xxxxxxxxxx writes:
> Original poster: "Paul B. Brodie"
> <pbbrodie@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> All,
> Jeez guys, give me a break. I was just being a little
> jealous and kidding
> about "deep pockets." I never dreamed I would get flamed
> for joking around.
> Paul Brodie
> Think Positive
>

    I don't know what all the fuss is about, really. I only invest in 
materials for my Coils based off sound engineering science and EE practice. 
I economize when possible. I have used WinTesla and TeslaJava, but I find 
their interface a bit tricky. And Java is slow, let's face it. I am 
surprised how long it takes to crunch the numbers on the computer I have 
here; the only thing else I have seen able to slow this puppy down is, of 
course, Windows.

    I wanted a decent winding for my secondary coil, so I bought up some 
silver bars, had them smelted, pulled into #26 size and insulated. I wound 
670 turns on a ruby rod I had laying around from some project or other. The 
spark gap was at first a problem because the 24kt gold kept melting off 
those gold points I embedded into the buillion bricks. (You'd think the 
Swiss could put out a better temperature tolerant brick!) But I finally had 
to go to iridium and platinum on the spark gap points just to get them to, 
y'know, look right. Mounted the whole thing on an onyx table. Everyone says 
its tacky but I think it was nice to wind the primary on top of a pattern 
of emeralds, rubies, and diamonds. They reflect the sparks real nice! Gives 
the whole thing a warm glow.

     I too had the common "exploding rotary gap" problem. I asked 
Lockheed's Skunk Works to help me, and they recommended titanium. It's a 
bit tricky to work with (brittle!) but now I have a rotary gap that is good 
to a hundred thousand RPM or so. It's a bit noisy when I light off the 
SR-71 jet turbine to spin it up, but Tesla Coils are always noisy, what's 
the fuss? And it's not like I don't throttle back after it's spun up! 
People are so ornery!

    I too had toroid problems. After mucking about with many things, I 
decided to "go pro".

    I finally just said the heck with it and had a casting foundry do the 
toroid in gold, because it's such a nice conductor. The trouble was the 
bozos gave me a thin casting, not a solid toroid! Oh, well, it was just as 
well ... the solid one weighed a bit much, and I have to admit it's just in 
use as a doorstop now. My poor butler sprained his back, in fact.

          I have a "pole pig", who is named "James", who really is a nice 
guy, and is available 24/7 after I put in a call to the CEO of Xcel and 
reminded him who his biggest stockholder was. James is only about 170 lbs 
so I don't know if "Pig" really describes him. It was right nice of Xcel to 
string some of those tall towers, you know, that hold the 3 big wires on 
each side?, to my house.

     'Course the buzzing and humming of the substation keeps ol' Yeller up 
nights a worryin'.


    Grins,

    Dave Small
    Baron of Denver

    Think Positive (for half the sine wave)