Re: [TCML] Maxwell 31173 fail

[Joe Mastroianni <joe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The other thing I should say about the tubing - I don't have the ability to weld aluminum - which is probably a better choice for these toploads given the weight.
I went with 1/2" schedule M copper, which though light for home pressurized water use, are still heavy if you're climbing up on a ladder to put it on the top of your secondary.

I could solder the copper with a propane torch, so that enabled me to add in  spliced sections.  To mimic a 12"x48" I had to have a central ring around 151", so I had to add 31 inches to the 10' lengths I got.  If I had to do that with aluminum, I would have been kind of screwed, unless I figured out some kind of splicing mechanism.  Might not be TOO hard to do mechanically, but you know how these things go.  I already figured I would have to use copper and so was mentally working out how to do the splice joints, and just dropped the whole aluminum thing from my mind.

All in all, I think the copper is a cheaper than the aluminum, but harder to work with.   The result out of the tubing bender was ever so slightly helical, and bending it manually to make it circular was kind of tricky, and I don't think I completely succeeded. 

If I was going to do it again, I think I'd try getting the same aluminum tubing used in large ham radio HF antennas and splice with inserts and screws, instead of solder/torch/welding the thing.  But that's going to be somewhat costy compared to just going down to the local farm supply place and picking up copper water pipe.

Joe

On Feb 12, 2011, at 9:16 AM, jimlux wrote:

> On 2/12/11 8:23 AM, Joe Mastroianni wrote:
>> <http://www.flickr.com/photos/iceowl/5437138473/>
>> New resonator<http://www.flickr.com/photos/iceowl/>  and topload combination.
>> 
> nice pretty topload.  Aside from your cap disaster, how did it work? I've seen tube type toploads like this with a bigger tube (i.e. air gap between tubes on the order of 1-2 diameters).
> 
> 
> 
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