Re: [TCML] Would a Tesla coil work in a vaccum?

[Sfxneon@xxxxxxx]

Brian,
 
I'd still call it an air cored transformer as long as it was being used at  
atmospheric pressure. If you put it in a vacuum, it could then be called a  
vacuum cored transformer. However, the Tesla coils we all build could never 
be  successfully operated in a high enough vacuum because the necessary 
degree of  vacuum could never be reached. The common materials we use would 
continually  outgas and spoil the required vacuum, even if actively pumped. 
This  would cause ionization of the residual gases around the primary and  
secondary, which is exactly what we don't want.
 
In theory, it would probably work, but...impractical and better to just  
pressurize or replace the air with Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) to suppress  
flashover.
 
Tony Greer

In a message dated 4/17/2010 11:24:58 P.M. Central  Daylight Time, 
brianh4242@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:

But if air is not necessary for the coupling to work, if no physical  
medium is required to transmit the electromagnetic energy - as the absence of  
air between the coils, from what I gather, would not interfere with the   
production of resonant rise, then should we really keep classifying it as an  
'air core' transformer then?  Granted, it is very rare that one hears of a  
tesla coil being built in anything other than 1 atm, but I cant help but think 
 that this  is circumstantial.
 
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