Re: Ignition Coils (fwd)

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

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Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 16:28:23 -0700
From: Ed Phillips <evp@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Tesla list <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Ignition Coils (fwd)

The capacitor and light dimmer approach to running from 120 VAC is the 
way to go - almost no work and does a good job if you keep the capacitor 
to a reasonable size.  I've used as much as 6 ufd but felt that was 
kinda high.  Problem with this simple circuit is that the pulses of 
current come directly from the AC line so that there will be lots of RF 
interference generated.  Putting a 20 ufd or greater across the line 
reduces those glitches at the expense of a lot of reactive current and 
switching transients when connecting to the line.

As for the Accel Supercoil, I haven't had too much luck with it charging 
primary capacitors much larger than 0.0022 ufd.  I did build one TC 
using the Accel running from a 12 volt IGBT interruptor and an 0.0047 
ufd primary capacitor but that seemed too large.  I was able to get 4" 
arcs from the little top toroid when I brought a screwdriver near it but 
no real breakout streamers more than about 1-1/2" when I used a 
thumbtack as a breakout point.  This was running about 30 watts input at 
around 200 Hz as I recall.

Ed