Re: ballast are bogus!!! (fwd)

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2007 18:36:32 -0700 (PDT)
From: daryl barsoom <rockincoiler@xxxxxxxxx>
To: tesla@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: ballast are bogus!!!

hi BunnyKiller,
   
  wow, lots of responses, thanks everyone!!!
   
    my coil has 950 turns of green ground wire that is kind of stiff. the
tube is a carboard tube for cement, its about 6" inside. the tube is 6'
long. then i found a plastic spool for the primary and wrapped 10 turns of
welding cable on it. i dont know about the 'piggie' how can i measure it?
there is a 25 painted on one side. its kind of rusty. the output will arc
about 1" with thes crewdriver. the capacator glass plates are 1/4" thick
and are about 2' wide and 3' long. they work great with the 18" aluninum
foil. i have to go count how many plates, i stacked them up until the arc
stopped getting bigger. think there's about 8? someone here was worried
about the SKIL saw, but its well grounded. its the only thing that hasnt
broke yet!
   
   i think the wires from the house to the garage are way too long, mabye
fatter wires would help the arc length. i could get some of that monster
cable. the wires in the wall sometimes they knock around in there when i
turn on the switch. the dog thinks its a rat or something, haha!  :)
   
  mabye a bigger electorde on top would be good. im using a aluninum
propane tank (dont worry its empty!) :)  the arcs usually come off the
feet. i will try to find a bigger electrode.
  
---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2007 13:23:37
-0500 From: BunnyKiller <bunnikillr@xxxxxxx> To: Tesla list
<tesla@xxxxxxxxxx> Subject: Re: ballast are bogus!!! (fwd)  Hey Rockin...  
you must have some serious length of wire between the polepig and the
circuit breaker ( acting like a ballast or should I say a resistive load)
to keep your piggie from pulling the amps it can. I would seriously
consider looking at the wiring from the circuit breaker to the dryer plug
to see if it has melted the insulation. Piggies are notorious for pulling
hundreds of amps at 240VAC easily when the hi volt side is a complete
circuit. The Piggie system I run REQUIRES a ballast to run. If I dont use
one, the piggie blows the 70A breaker even when I just think about turning
on the coil :) ....  To be able to let us help you, let us know more about
your system ...  things like how big your piggie is, the secondary dia.
sizes, toroid sizes, cap
 size you know... the important stuff...  who knows, with the correct info
given to us we may be able to give some infoback to you so you may
increase your streamer length to 10' instead of 6'.  As far as using
welders as ballast...  some have had wonderful results in current control
and others a smoking, stinking box of melted wire...  p.s.  the welder has
something called a duty cycle -- which equates to a time on and a time off
( to cool off) , if you exceed the duty cycle, the wires on the welder
transformer become too hot to handle any further load and the insulation
melts and either arcs out or the windings short to each other creating
less and less of the needed turns to maintain the proper voltage per turn
ratio...  lets us know more about your coil, alot of us here want to see
other coilers improve the output of their coils....  Scot D Tesla list
wrote:
  
>---------- Forwarded message ----------  >Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2007 00:10:15 -0700 (PDT)  >From: daryl barsoom <rockincoiler@xxxxxxxxx>  >To: tesla@xxxxxxxxxx  >Subject: ballast are bogus!!!  >  >hello!!  >     >  so i built a telsa coil last year?  after lots of mesing around with it it work pretty good, like 6' sparks!  i now sure wish taht i knew about you guys first!  >     >  it has 950 turn secondaryand a 10 turn primary coil, made out of old welding cable.  the 'pole pig' (heh) is 220volt and runs off the welding outlet from the dryer in the garage.  i have an old SKIL saw with a 10" beam blade that work great for the rotary gap but the blade is good for only mabye 5 runs.  >     >  but the website plans say to always use a 'ballast' like an old stick welder, with a pole pig.  so i did? but now the welder started smoking a little bit, because it was already very old.  >     >  so, i got mad and just took the welder out of the circuit. and guess what?? the coil works 
 even better!!!  it arcs way longer, and you can't even looka t the SKIL saw anymore while its running!  the pole pig makes the hummy hummy thumpy sound too so now i guess its finally doing some work.  >     >  so the whole ballast thing is a joke? i dont know what they were on when they said that.  >  >         >---------------------------------  


       
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