Re: [TCML] Sudden and unexplained destructive racing spark flashovers

["Dex Dexter" <dexterlabs@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,
Interesting.
Some secondary coilform materials,in longer runs tend to collect and build up static charges.
At least that's how I heard althought I didn't notice my coil ever did it.
Perhaps something similar could be the plausible explanation for your coil ?

Dex 


--- drieben@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

From: "David Rieben" <drieben@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "tesla Coil Mailing List" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc:
Subject: [TCML] Sudden and unexplained destructive racing spark flashovers
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:36:05 -0500

Hi all,

Well, Phillip Slawinski and Cameron Prince (and Cameron's son,
Brandon) made the 3 hour drive from northern Alabama to Mem-
phis yesterday for some sparks and ozone. As is often the case
this time of the year in this part of the country, the outside temps
were absolutely sweltering (upper 90's w/ high humidity) but we
still had a great time. Phillip also over and illustrated his newly 
completed DRSSTC unit and was slinging 32"+ sparks all over 
the floor of my garage from its 3"x ~15" secondary, topped with 
a 4 x 13 spun toroid. We finally got around to firing off the Green 
Monster that evening while Cameron and Phillip both got a 
lot of still shot and video footage of the show. Once again, my 
18 kV distribution arrester (aka safety gap) finally gave up the
ghost, so we had to bypass it to get the sparks going again. Fi-
nally, we were powering it up and down for Phillip to get more video 
footage when all of the sudden and without warning, the secondary 
flashed over to the primary with farily destructive results before I 
could kill the power. :^<

Quetsion: Can anyone offer a plausible explanation for why an
otherwise perfectly tuned and running SG coil, that we verified
was quenching on the second notch consistantly and first notch
with ground stiking power arcs, will all of the sudden destructively 
flash over with secondary/primary racing sparks? I witnessed DC's
Big Bruiser do exactly the same thing at the 2007 Cheesehead 
Teslathon and it seems till this day, no one has been able to offer
a plausible explanation for why this happens. I seem to recall DC 
citing something about the high humidity causing it but the thing 
is, no one else's coil there suffered this same fate operating in
the same ambient atmosphereic conditions as the BB, (including
my Green Monster, at the time) . I sure would like to figure out
what's causing these anomylous flashovers so I can take the 
proper future steps to prevent this from re-occuring. ;^/ Anyone?

BTW, I believe I can probably salvage my current secondary 
coil for future re-use, as I only ended up losing about the bot-
tom most 10 secondary windings from a 1250 turn total and
it looks like I have successfully sanded out most of the damaged
poly coating, but I sure would like to figure out how to prevent this 
from re-occuring in the future. ;^*




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