Re: Racing Sparks

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: "David Rieben" <drieben@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Hi,

I believe what Mark is referring to is when the resonant peak voltage 
is reached somewhere along the secondary coil BEFORE the top
winding of the secondary. This is basicaly improper
tuning which indeed can cause that pesky phenomenon.
Racing sparks can also be caused by improper (too
tight) primary/secondary coupling. If this is the cause,
the problem can be fixed by just raising the secondary
coil in 1/4" to 1/2" increments relative to the plane of the primary 
coil. Keep raising the secondary until the racing sparks stop and you 
will have optimum coupling.
BTW, from my personal experience, optimum primary/
secondary coupling can be fairly critical, so you may have
to play with it a bit to get it just right. Also, make sure that the 
surface of the secondary is wiped clean of any possibly
conductive dust or trash and is DRY.

David Rieben


----- Original Message ----- From: "Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2005 4:31 PM
Subject: Re: Racing Sparks


> Original poster: Mark Barlow <barlow_tesla_lst@xxxxxxxxx>
>
> From my personal experience with racing sparks, I have only seen 
> them occur when my Tesla coil is excited at a 3rd or 5th and so on 
> ODD Harmonic. To fix this I increased the size of my capacitor bank 
> and primary coil this lowered the frequency down to the 1st 
> harmonic of the coil and stopped the racing sparks. Hope this helps 
> and good luck!
>
> - Mark
>
> Tesla list <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Original poster: tesla popp
>
> I just set up my "Devian" coil. This coil was
> originally designed to be very small and powerful.
> the problem is that i cant even power it up 15%
> without the sparks racing across the secondaries
> surface. I have 5 coats of poly on it already. I
> also played with to toroid in some failed attempt to
> fix the problem.
> How can i get sparks to stop racing across the
> surface?