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Re: an interesting mechanical engineering problem



Original poster: "Steve Ward" <steve.ward@xxxxxxxxx>

If we want to concern ourselves with eddy losses, then perhaps a flat
vertical buss-bar type primary is better than a round conductor (just
like those ribbon primaries Terry Blake and others make, just much
thicker!).  Most of the magnetic flux leaves the primary perpendicular
to the horizontal plane, so the copper is smallest in that dimension,
reducing eddy currents.  Maybe with some training with FEMM (or other
programs) i can take a look at what kind of gains there may be to
this.

Steve

On 1/12/07, Tesla list <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Original poster: "Lau, Gary" <Gary.Lau@xxxxxx>

I'm not sure that I agree with using copper stock.  If I was running my
coil using some conventional primary configuration, and then I placed a
6" x 6" sheet of copper stock on top of that primary, I suspect it would
cause losses due to eddy currents induced within the sheet.  When I
performed an experiment to compare AC resistance of various primary
conductors, a 1" x .03" copper ribbon had the lowest DC resistance by a
wide margin, but at frequencies below 100 KHz, the AC resistance of some
heavy Litz wire was significantly lower.  See
http://www.laushaus.com/tesla/primary_resistance.htm.

Of course Litz wire presents some difficulties in terms of being able to
experimentally tap it, but you could make just the last 20% of the coil
out of copper pipe and tap that.

Regards, Gary Lau
MA, USA

 > Original poster: "Jim Mora" <jmora@xxxxxxxxxxx>
 >
 > Hello All,
 >
 > I'm still an advocate of using flat copper stock. Since the turns are
 > further reduced in the modified plans, I would think it would want to
be at
 > least 6" wide and sized in thickness to easily handle the skin depth.
The
 > upper edge could be rounded to deter corona, especially if the
thickness is
 > heavy enough.
 >
 > I thought the simplest attachment method would be to cut the
circumference
 > in 3rds or fourths as transportable. The joints would be machined to
half
 > depth to mate together in a flush manner and made as long as seems
lossless.
 > One side would be threaded for the bolt pattern.
 >
 > Conduction could be further improved be using a copper impregnated
 > conductive grease that is used on radio tower connections, which I
have been
 > using on my big discharge cap flanges. It works great to eliminate
 > oxidation.
 >
 > Regards to all,
 > Jim Mora