Re: [TCML] VTTC Trouble - Help

["Bud" <bud@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.stevehv.4hv.org/Staccato/staccatosch.gif

Hi Dave,
I built my staccato controller from the above schematic.  It works very well
and I am not all that great at electronics either.  But it is pretty self
explanatory and pretty easy to follow.  I have burned mine several times and
found it to be just the 555 timer chip....being too close to the primary
circuit.

  My chip sets into a socket and changing it is just as easy as prying the
old one out and putting a new one in.  When the chip gets fried the entire
thing either stays on all the time or just won't work as I remember it.
Sounds like this might be a simple fix.  The chips are dirt cheap and you
can find them anywhere especially on ebay in quantity.

The other thing that might be fried is the SCR, TRIAC, or MOSSFET which is
being driven by the timing circuit on the staccato board.  I have also
burned these trying different primary voltages that are way too high.  Can't
say I haven't tried several combinations on the VTTC.  At least I know where
the curbs are now!

Bud



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Rieben" <drieben@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Tesla Coil Mailing List" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2008 2:17 PM
Subject: Re: [TCML] VTTC Trouble - Help


> Hi Bud,
>
> Yes, I remember you and your son well. I finally did figure out
> the second issue with the tube plate getting excessively hot with
> only a small input power and the output sparks only reaching a
> few inches. I had the grid coil leads wired backwards. Tube coils
> are very picky about corret polarity. However, I think the stacatto
> driver is likely toast and the internal guts of it are absolutely tiny.
> Looks like I may be having to pay or barter someone to build me
> another as I don't do microelectronics too well :^0
>
> David
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Bud" <bud@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: "Tesla Coil Mailing List" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2008 9:56 AM
> Subject: Re: [TCML] VTTC Trouble - Help
>
>
> > Hi Dave,
> >
> > I saw you at ED's in rochester with my rotary gap.  I too have had my
> > share
> > of problems with both the VTTC and Stacatto unit.  One thing for sure I
> > found out the hard way.....you can't have the stacatto unit too close to
> > the
> > coil.  The RF does a job on the small chip.  You might want to E-mail
> > Steve
> > as he is real good with the VTTC's.  You'll get it I'm sure of that.
> >
> > Bud
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: "David Rieben" <drieben@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> > To: "Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>; "Cameron B. Prince"
> > <cameron@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "Phillip Slawinski" <pslawinski@xxxxxxxxx>
> > Sent: Monday, September 08, 2008 11:33 PM
> > Subject: [TCML] VTTC Trouble - Help
> >
> >
> > Hey guys,
> >
> > I have been spending the day re-packaging my vacuum tube Tesla
> > coil as the previous setup was not very asthetically pleasing i.e.
> > it was plain ugly. Well once I got it back together on a better look-
> > ing frame, of course I had a few bugs to iron out. I finally got it to
> > running a bit again but there is a real problem. The stacatto con-
> > troller circuit -looks like- it's on all the time. Before I repackaged
the
> > system, the stacatto controller could be turned on or off and when it
> > was turned off, the VTTC output would just be in continous mode.
> > Now, as I said -it looks like- it's on all of the time as the blinking
> > LEDs stay on all the time regardless of the switch position. However,
> > the output will now NOT go stacatto even though it looks to be on
> > all of the time. It seems that it has gone from bad to worse as I
> > had to remove the top 3" PVC end cap as it kept carbonizing inside
> > at the top of the 3" secondary coil. Since I took that off I've noticed
> > that now it seems that the coil is suddenly badly out of tune as the
> > plate will glow very brightly and hum at a relatively low variac setting
> > but the output spark won't get but just a few inches long. The only
thing
> > that's changed is that I took off the carbonzed end cap and was just
> > letting the sparks come off of the end of the secondary wire lead.
> > I was originally getting close to 40" sparks in stacatto by "cheating"
the
> > 20 amp panel breaker and taking a 120 volt circuit out of my Green
> > Monster control panel with up to 100 amps capacity before having
> > to worry about tripping breakers, so things have really gone down hill
> > for me since remounting the system on a better frame. I'm pretty much
> > a VTTC dummy and just built this one loosely following this design:
> > http://www.stevehv.4hv.org/VTTC5/833Aschematic.JPG
> > Any suggestions from the VTTC gurus would be greatly appreciated.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > David
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Tesla@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > http://www.pupman.com/mailman/listinfo/tesla
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Tesla mailing list
> > Tesla@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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> >
>
> _______________________________________________
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>

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