Original poster: "Barton B. Anderson" <bartb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Hi Matt,It will work just as well as a uniform wound coil. It will be ugly, but it will be work fine. Even the inductance would calc good.
However, the primary inserted into the wooden runner slots is a problem. When you fire up the coil, the wood will carbon track (this will rob power and you'll get no streamers; power to the streamers is the whole idea). Replace the wood with acrylic, pvc pipe, or something that is not wood. If you use wooden runners, make sure you use some type of standoff between the primary wire and wooden runner.
Primary's are always more difficult than a simple secondary winding. If you decide on acrylic, you can make snap-in primary winding slots. Just make the acrylic similar to your wooden runners.
Here's an image of how I personally machine acrylic for this purpose (a simple image only to get the idea across).
http://www.classictesla.com/temp/Pristand.gifThe slots below the lay-in cradle is to give the acrylic some give when snapping in the primary. The thicker the acrylic, the harder it is to snap in. If the acrylic is too thick, the primary winding will actually dent and not allow the cradle slots to grab the primary as wanted. It takes practice to get good at machining the acrylic precisely for this purpose, but once you've skilled yourself at it, the acrylic is a nice material to use for a primary. 1/4" thick acrylic is about right for any primary.
Take care, Bart Tesla list wrote:
Original poster: "M G" <gt4awd@xxxxxxxxx> Hi everyone, I finished making my primary coil. It has eleven turns using 10 ga. solid copper wire. The turns are spaced at least half an inch, and the coil is on a 35 degree angle. The spacing is fine, but the coil is uneven at parts. The 10 ga. wire was not the easiest to shape right. I was wondering if this is going to affect the coil performance a lot, or if my primary should be fine? Is the perfect, circular, shaping of most well built primary coils for performance reasons, or is it just nice to look at?<http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/6384/1000122be1.jpg>http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/6384/1000122be1.jpghttp://img167.imageshack.us/img167/2487/1000121qa2.jpg By the way, what should I do to hold the wire in place? Right now its just pressed agianst the wood inside the slots. If it were to fall the coil would be ruined. I could use wood/metal epoxy but it is flammable. That is what I used to attach the primary supports to the wood base. Thanks, Matt ----------<http://cinema.lycos.com/?if_Event=mail>Free Movies 100's of Free Feature Length Films - Meet Friends, Watch Movies & Win!