Re: [TCML] Tesla coil book in PDF

[Chip Atkinson <chip@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Dex,

A while back I recieved a review copy of this book.  First off, I'd say
that if you can legally grab it from that web site, go for it.  The price
is reasonably decent and it should be a fairly fast download.

In reading the book I was struck by the amazing amount of work that Mr.
Tilbury must have put into the spread sheets to which he frequently
refers.  However, since a large portion of my reading was done on the bus I was
unable to take advantage of them, which I found rather frustrating.

For the most part the book read like a giant users' guide for a large
collection of spread sheets.  

The section on metering I found fairly interesting and enlightening, but that
was because I don't have much background in that.  

Two sections kind of left me miffed -- first was capacitors.  There was
virtually nothing on making your own, even the MMC variety.  I personally have
had better luck with MMC caps than commercial ones.  Maybe because I over drove
the commercial ones, but still, I was able to build an MMC for less than the
commercial TC capacitor and it took quite a bit of punishment and hasn't shown
any problems.

The second was primary construction.  The technique suggested was to drill
holes in the supports and thread the tubing for the primary through them.  I've
seen this done but man, talk about a wrestling match.  You'd think for as much
effort as he put into the spread sheets, he'd have given more thought to the
primary construction. 

Ok, my final beef was with the curve fit equations.  Look on page 213 for an
example.  y=11.798x**2+118.04x+2.5248  .  If you go to
http://www.wolframalpha.com and enter 
plot y=11.798x**2+118.04x+2.5248
(Here's the URL:)
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=plot+y%3D11.798x**2%2B118.04x%2B2.5248

you'll see a nice parabolic plot.  Similarly on p 223, you'll see a kind of
crazy equation to fit the curve.  Sure, it fits the curve for the range
specified, but once you get past that, the lines don't follow anything close to
the anticipated trend.  I think it would be much better to just say something
like y=133x, which would ultimately match the graph on p213 much more closely.  

So if you're going to use the curve fit equations, you need to put a big ol'
warning on them that says that the values only match for the range shown on the
graph.  Otherwise people are going to want to go outside the bounds and the
higher powers of X will overwhelm any coefficients of the lower powers of X.

Despite its shortcomings, it's a good book for your shelf and is a good way 
to get spread sheets to design a TC, but I wouldn't call it ultimate as in 
the final word on TC design.

Chip


On Fri, 16 Oct 2009, Dex Dexter wrote:

> 
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> Book written by Mitch Tilbury in PDF form:
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.conspiration.cc/energie/tesla_coil_design.pdf
> 
> What do you think of it ?
> What are good and weak sides of it in your opinion?
> 
> 
> Dex 
> 
> 
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