Original poster: Vardan <vardan01@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Hi Dave, At 07:10 AM 11/12/2006, you wrote:
Terry, I read your description of coating your secondary, and I got to thinking.I was by Home Depot ("The choice of Tesla Coilers") the other day, and they have a variety of materials, including various plastics. I happen to know from direct experience that some of the 1/8" plastics hold up pretty well as capacitors under a 12 Kv transformer.
The primary holder for my coil is 0.22 acrylic from Home Depot. Acrylic glues very well with Weld-On so I used it instead of lexan.
What I'm wondering is this: If a more malleable plastic was used, and rolled right onto the secondary, it could easily form 1/2 an inch or an inch of insulation. It could also be glued along the way, forming a pretty solid chunk of plastic.
Hopefully, you will not need to do that. It cases where I have had to stand off super high voltage (streamers) I used common poly sheeting used for painting. Like 4 mil poly sheeting. I use it off the roll in like 30 layers. The many layers divide the voltage and capacitance up so it is very hard for the AC streamer to drive enough current through it to burn through.
The problem with a solid plastic is it will tend to form a single burn spot that will fairly quickly tear it's way through. The many layer approach stops that. Of course, the many layers look bad unlike nice clear plastic. But you really should not need anything like that anyway. The coatings are only to protect the windings from physical damage. I assume they do nothing electrically. The secondary I coated has been running totally uncoated for 2 years now or with the plastic wrap on it which does nothing electrically.
Cheers,
Terry
The question is: Would this do any good whatsoever?
Just a suggestion to toss into the pool.
-- thanks,
Dave Small