Ok, I ended up adding a temporary winding to the primary coil (at present I believe I am at about 8.25 turns on the primary. But things are looking up. When I first put the ground wire up near the toroid I was only able to get about 2" sparks. I think I was at about 4.5 turns at that point.
It seems that I may still need to add more turns to get it really dialed in, but I noticed that having the ground wire 11" from the toroid I was getting good arcing, but when I tried to move it to 12" away from the toroid I could reach it once in a while but then I got a lot of action on my safety gap. I'm thinking I might need to move that safety gap apart a little bit more. I don't want to move the safety gap out so far that I my spark gap might get too wide as I thought I read that a spark gap too wide can burn up an NST.
Here's a video of the 11" arcing: https://youtu.be/Lka24-Hqf3k
Thanks! Paul
--------------------------------------------
On Sun, 12/27/15, Heather & Paul Novotny via Tesla <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Subject: Re: [TCML] No topload output
To: "Tesla Coil Mailing List" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sunday, December 27, 2015, 9:08 PM
Hi Jim,
I do have about a 2" gap in my Strike Rail.
Good idea to run a solid copper wire from ground up next to
the toroid and a having breakout point on the toroid to see
if anything is happening up there.
I have the coil on the floor of my garage which is a cement
slab poured on earth. My ground is a copper
wire that runs to a metal stake pounded down about 2.5 feet
into the earth outside my garage.
Thanks!
Paul
--------------------------------------------
On Sun, 12/27/15, Jim Lux <jimlux@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Subject: Re: [TCML] No topload output
To: "Heather & Paul Novotny" <p_novotny@xxxxxxxxx>,
"Tesla Coil Mailing List" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sunday, December 27, 2015, 9:02 PM
On 12/27/15 5:29 PM,
Heather & Paul Novotny via Tesla wrote:
>
Hi guys,
>
> I just
tried my TC for the first time tonight after COUNTLESS
hours
of work on it. Unfortunately, I am getting no streamers
from the topload.
>
Do you have a breakout point
on the topload?
And something to spark to? I
use a piece of grounded (as in connected to
the bottom of the secondary/counterpoise)
copper tubing that sticks up
and I can
move closer and farther from the topload.
In your picture, I'd put
it sticking up from the edge of your cart,
until you get things working.
Does your
strike rail have a gap in it? (It should, or it looks like
a
shorted turn)
What's your ground scheme look like? For a
coil this size, I'd use
something like
a 3-4 foot square piece of chicken wire or hardware
cloth, or sheet metal under the coil. (rule
of thumb is that "ground"
should
have a radius comparable to the height of the
secondary).
In
your case, that ground
screen/counterpoise should be at the level of the
top of your cart.
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