Re: 1994 article

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: Ed Phillips <evp@xxxxxxxxxxx>

"30 years ago, surprisingly little was known about Tesla coils and how
they worked.  The information that was available was full of wild BS
and there was really not "another" explanation available.  Even
though Tesla coils have been around for say 110 years, the age of
much of the detailed theory can be counted on one hand and almost all
of it on two...  I cannot recall how many hundreds of times I have
heard that Tesla coils cannot be explained by electrical
engineers...  We all remember the often sited quote "Electrical
Engineering handbooks state that the design of Tesla coils is
empirical"... and that was from one of the very best books of the
era...  Heeeey, were are all those nay sayers "now"!?  >:o))"

	I would amend that a bit.  I think any trained engineer who gave the
matter any thought would understand the principles easily; they were
certainly applied to HV generation in the form of "RF power supplies"
(high-impedance self-resonant secondaries).  As for empirical design,
perhaps it would be better to say that successful Tesla coils lend
themselves to empirical design (wind a big secondary and fool around)
and that detailed technical knowledge isn't necessary for someone to
build one and have fun with it.  What handbook was that and did it say
that the design of TC's HAD to be empirical; I doubt it.  I've never
heard anyone say that they "cannot be explained by electrical
engineers"; that is certainly untrue.

	I think the most important advance in TC performance for long-spark
spark maniacs such as my self was the introduction of the large, usually
toroidal upper terminal and the most important advance in building was
the MMC idea, which made it easy to get high-quality capacitors at a
reasonable price.  In all my limited coiling experience the capacitor
was always the weakest link and I've spent countless hours building
glass plate capacitors and wrecking them.  The recent SSTC work is all
new of course, and the results are remarkable but no new basic
principles are involved.

	As for all the rest and the general tone of this note I say AMEN!  Well
put.

Ed