Hi Again Christian,
There is no officially recognized method, which is why I promote the
pF per watt method as described in my last e-mail. I use a 27 inch top
load with my 4*20 inch coil, yeah it looks a bit over sized, but
unfortunately super single arc performance comes from over sized top
loads. I actually have that balanced on top of a 3.5*15 toroid, I pump in
about 2 kW and get 60 inch arcs... When stacking top laods you just add
the capacitance, so if you want the equivalent of a 29 inch top load, use
2*14.5 inch top loads. My top loads are kind of rough, corrugated
aluminum
duct cover in foil tape, smoothed with a wooden roller. In my experience
a
really smooth top load doesn't make much difference, as along as no points
extrude much farther than another the magnetic field is even, this is how
they can get away with chicken wire top loads. As far as connection,
nothing special is needed, I just have the wire from the secondary
touching
it, and one sits atop the other, it is fine as long as the wind does not
blow (they are quite light...) In general I prefer a smaller secondary, I
shoot for a 4.5*1 height to diameter ratio, and a 2.5*1 spark length to
winding length ratio (using the freu formula for spark length per
wattage.) Makes for a small but super powerful looking unit, nothing is
more underwhelming that a huge coil with small sparks, better to go for a
huge top load and tiny coil if that is what performs... I hear tell
Richard Hull was able to coax 10 foot sparks out of a 4*13 inch coil with
a
massive top load, it was a magnifier though, but still... Go for the big
top load, get used to the look of it, you won't regret it...
Scott Bogard.
On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 7:49 PM, Christian Hill <monolegal@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Thank you for your help. I looked around but couldn't find any method for
estimating the topload size. I read that to get the biggest arcs for a
given power level, you should construct a toroid too large to breakout on
it's own and add a breakout posing. Ideally, I'd construction a toroid
with
a diameter of around 29 inches, but a near 30 inch toroid seems
obnoxiously
large considering my coil platform is 20x20. Plus, I don't yet have a
very
solid method of attaching my top load. It's attached, just not very well.
Perhaps I'll place a smaller toroid underneath the 16" one. Are there any
rules or suggestions when stacking toroids?
The coil is of the 4.5" variety because I originally planned it to be
powered with 12kV 60ma but got a third transformer for free. I figured
the
extra power wouldn't hurt, as long as I adjusted the MMC and tuned it.
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