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Re: [TCML] First (Result Yielding) Light. A Few Questions...

Hey---
The charge you notice on the variac casing is actually on you. The alternating electric field induces an AC charge on any conducting object in the area, and if the object is not grounded, it will be charged to some alternating voltage depending on its location, area, etc. When you come close to the variac case this voltage drives an alternating current to the case in a spark that you feel. If you hold your other hand on the case, you will not feel anything due to the lower current density and the fact that there is not a spark.
The sparks on the body of the coil could be due to having too high a frequency, so that it has a quarter-wave point below the top. Lowering the frequency might push these sparks up to the top electrode. Or not.
I find that grounding the bottom of the secondary separately with a relatively low inductance wire (large diameter, direct path with minimal kinks and turns) going to actual ground helps interference and spurious pickup issues.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'racing sparks,' but if you have a long power cable feeding your coil system, the loop formed by this cable, the secondary ground, and the earth (a ground loop) can pick up mondo EMF from the magnetic field of the primary. You should minimize the ara of this loop by running the cables close to the ground and as direct as possible. I feel sure that the legendary engineer A. C. Humm would agree with this. Following the advice in the preceding paragraph can make this type of ground loop more likely. 

Have fun...

Carl



Hi All,

I fired up my coil again a little while ago. I'm very pleased with the
results, no matter the amount of troubleshooting it still desperately
needs... There were a few interesting things and problems I'd like to ask
you all about.

The first thing, is that 'ever persistent' interference being sent back
throughout the house. On the very first run, I was having issues with the
primary arcing over to the secondary. When I shut it off and went back
inside to wait for the caps to bleed out, I noticed that that the jacuzzi
tub was on and my Directv receiver was throwing a message about an invalid
card or something. A reboot fixed that, and the bathtub didn't come back on
after adjusting the primary and secondary coils and running a few more
times.

On a related note, I noticed a small (static?) charge on the variac casing
when i touched it while cranking the dial. This was while it was running,
not a stored charged I felt later. I was operating from a safe distance of
about 7-8' away, so it shouldn't be picking up a charge off the field, I
don't think... Would some AC line filters help with these, uh, 'results'?

The second thing I'd like to address is the large amount of sparks and
corona I'm getting around the top of the secondary for about 4-6" down. I
added a breakout point, and that hardly changed the results. Won't adding
another topload as well as elevating them a bit away from the secondary
help?

The third and final thing I want to ask you guys about, and possibly related
to the last thing, is the racing sparks I'm getting as I dial the variac up
into the 120-140V zone. That's just bad coupling, right? And wouldn't
raising the secondary coil be the solution?

Thanks everybody,
I wouldn't be able to do any this without ya',
Brandon H.
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