Re: [TCML] Need assistance in diagnosing poor performance

["Chris Swinson" <list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Steve,

I don't know what design you have, I assume SSTC ?

A small hint, the connections to the feedback circuit can tune to a 
harmonic. When I did my SSTC work it caught me out.. I had a single turn as 
the feedback and it turned on a harmonic, swapped the connections and all 
worked fine after that!

A simple test, just hold a flu-tube and move it up and down the secondary 
coil, it should get brighter as it gets to the top, if it gets bright and 
goes dim 2 or 3 times then you are tuned on a harmonic.

This method is also good as you can work out if you have too many turns on 
your coils too.. I used to build 60" high coils then downsized to 50 as the 
max voltage point wasn't the top of the coil, it actually was at about 50" 
then the voltage started to get dim as height increased. The last 10inches 
of wire were just acting as a high voltage resistor...

HTH
Chris



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stephen J. Hobley" <shobley@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Tesla Coil Mailing List" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2008 12:53 AM
Subject: [TCML] Need assistance in diagnosing poor performance


We're still not getting the performance we would expect out of the Tesla
coil we built.

It might have been the humidity that killed it tonight, as performance
was the worst yet - spark length was only 3" using the safety wand.

Where should I start in looking for problems? I've built the 555 timer
based tuner and re-tapped the primary at coil 11, as this gave the
dimmest indication, as per the instructions.

Apart from that, I'm a bit stumped.

I've seen evidence that this coil can give much better performance -
Alan sent me some recent pictures of a US military coiler over in Iraq,
getting at least 25" arcs out of his coil - exact same specs.

Maybe the desert air helps...

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Steve
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