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Re: [TCML] General Questions About a Pig Powered Coil (and anIntroduction)
Hi Tom,
Welcome to the hobby. From reading your post
and from the mention of your "real job" pedigree,
it sounds like you should already be adequately
informed on the basic concept of operation ;^)
I guess the only thing that puzzles me is why you
would want to limit the size of your proposed
secondary coil to 8" x 25", considering that you
have a massive variac assemby and a pole pig. I'm
assuming that your pig is of the typical coiler's
size choice range of 10 or 15 kVA and 14,400
volts? I mean it seems like you would be severe-
ly limiting the potential of your power supply to
"choke" it back to a 120 volt, 30 amp service
and "only" be shooting for 6 ft. discharges. And
trust me, if you are like 99% of the rest of us
coilers, those 6 foot discharges will be very im-
pressive at first light but you will soon grow bored
and want BIGGER sparks, especially when you al-
ready have a very adequate power supply to readily
accomplish that. And you certainly have the power
supply hardware already in tow for easily making
sparks 3X that, assuming that you obtain and/or
build the rest of the coil system components to spec.
Then again, you may be space challenged for storage
and/or operation of a giant Tesal coil, too - kind of
where I'm at with my current coil system.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33464569@N05/3765877471/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33464569@N05/3118469520/
Anyway, the you should normally aim for a secondary
coil aspect ratio (length vs diameter) in the 3:1 to the
5:1 range and a topload toroid with a major diameter
about equal to the secondary coil length and a minor
diameter about equal to the diameter of the secondary
coil. SO if you secondary coil is 8x25, that would also
be a good appr. size dimension to aim for with your
topload.
Good luck with your project,
David Rieben
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Schmit" <Thomas.Schmit@xxxxxxx>
To: <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2010 5:59 PM
Subject: [TCML] General Questions About a Pig Powered Coil (and
anIntroduction)
Hi Everybody,
I've never used a mailing list like this before, so you will have to
excuse any faux pa regarding the use of said list. For a quick bit of
background, I am a machinist and high energy physicist and it seemed
time that I build a Tesla coil. (No self-respecting physicist can
neglect to build one ;-) ).
I have a 3 phase variac (used for a cloud chamber, originally - its
good to 100 amps and 600 VAC RMS), a single phase pole pig, an old
mil-spec 30 KVDC 5 ma supply, several neon light transformers, etc.
That being said, I'm new to the home-brew high voltage game. It is
considerably different than working for a lab where dropping $10,000
on a power supply is trump change :-D and I could use all the help I
can get!
What I am concerned about now is the design of my coil. I am building
with a 6' spark in mind - that should pretty well max out a 110 volt
supply (the pole pig will be fed through one of the variacs hooked
into 110 volt mains through a 30 amp breaker). I'm looking at a
secondary coil with about 1000 turns of 23 AWG wire, which works out
to a length of only about 25". I am concerned about strikes hitting
the primary coil from the discharge terminal on the secondary.
I guess I was just hoping I could get some input on the secondary
design. I'm thinking an 8" diameter PVC form - I will clean, bake and
shellac it before winding my coil. Size/length/diameter of wire/number
of turns - these are all variables that I'm not to sure about. I know
what inductance I want to hit, but I can get there several different
ways and I figure you all have already done the hard work for me ...
:-)
Tom Schmit
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