RE: [TCML] First light but something's still not quite right

[neal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Wood'll do that. My coil took the proverbial "quantum leap" in performance when
I changed my gap assembly from a piece of wood to an old plastic cutting board.

Neal.

Quoting Andrew Nettles <anettles@xxxxxxxxxxx>:

> OK this is a good one.....everyone should get a kick out of this.
>
> My rotary gap base is a piece of 1/4" lexan on top of a piece of 3/4" red
> oak.  The gap terminals are brass hexrods bolted from underneath, countersunk
> into the oak, and bored out to accommodate the tungsten electrodes.
>
> I disconnected the tank circuit, bypassed the filter, and rotated the gap so
> it was lined up and should fire.  Powered it up and got nothing....got up
> next to it and after several seconds I saw what looked like a smoking wire.
> Turned it off and examined the wire and it was fine.  Then it suddenly hit me
> - what could be smoking that I couldn't see?  The gap was sitting on a
> plywood shelf and as soon as I moved it out of the way, sure enough there
> were carbon circles burned into the plywood where the countersunk bolts were
> sitting above it.
>
> I cut a piece of lexan and shoved it underneath and the coil runs great!I'll
> upload some pics as soon as I find my camera.
>
>
>
> > From: anettles@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: tesla@xxxxxxxxxx> Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008
> 16:03:21 -0500> CC: > Subject: [TCML] First light but something's still not
> quite right> > I got my 6" coil to fire up yesterday and although I was glad
> it worked the first try, I'm still having a problem.> > It only ran for a few
> seconds and then quit. I had noticed before when messing with the safety gap
> that the GTO wire still leaked a bit even though it was rated for 15kv and
> that's what my transformer is rated. So I made sure there was adequate
> spacing between those wires and the grounds and then it worked again.....for
> a few seconds. The variac & nst test fine.> > I went to set the safety again
> and disconnected the tank circuit but didn't disconnect the rest of the
> filter. As soon as the safety stopped firing, I'd get a nasty hot arc between
> the two rows of capacitors in the Terry filter. So after bonking myself in
> the head, I isolated the safety gap and set it. At one setting I would plug
> it in and it wouldn't fire 3 out of 4 times and then I'd get a big arc - not
> the two little ones between the gaps. I backed it out a little more until I
> could plug it in repeatedly and not get that.> > So I have the wires
> separated, safety gap set properly...but it still stopped working. It seems
> like the hv is getting shorted to ground but I can't see what I've done
> wrong. Could it be a problem with the terry filter? The two rows of caps are
> separated by about 1-1/2 inches of space....I'm wondering if that's adequate
> or if that's the problem. I've ground every solder joint down so there's no
> sharp edges.> > My rotary gap seems to be set close enough to work, but I
> can't get the coil to run long enough to tune the tap or play with the motor
> phase.> > I'd be grateful for some input. And BTW thank you to all the people
> on this list who helped me when I needed it - I'm just about there.> > -
> Andrew Nettles, Fort Worth_______________________________________________>
> Tesla mailing list> Tesla@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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