Okay, that makes perfect sense. I am very familiar with the parasitics associated with Tesla coils and their circuits, so that is understood. I'm definitely still learning here. Thanks to you and Antonio for your very informative responses!
My initial question for Doug about reducing capacitance and increasing primary turns was based on personal experience, mainly (and I think someone told me once that more turns is better, within reason). My DR originally had higher capacitance and fewer primary turns, and the output was not terribly great even when tuned. I eventually reduced the amount of capacitance and added half again as many turns and after tuning the resulting arcs were noticeably more impressive. I suppose that could have been affected by a variety of factors though.
Best,
Matt
-----Original Message-----
From: David Thomson <aetherwizard@xxxxxxxxx>
To: Tesla Coil Mailing List <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sun, Feb 17, 2019 8:07 pm
Subject: Re: [TCML] Coupling
Each winding in a coil adds capacitance to a circuit. Think of each
parallel wire as a plate capacitor.
David Thomson
On Sun, Feb 17, 2019 at 5:00 PM Douglas Johnson <doug379306@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> The way I have this set up I can go 15, 10 .5 tank, and change primary from
> .06 to .250 to .380.
> And could you please explain why less tank = more primary turns? I told you
> I wasn't very technical😉
> Doug
>
> On Sun, Feb 17, 2019 at 4:42 PM derstrom8--- via Tesla <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi Doug,
> >
> > Is there any way for you to reduce your tank capacitance so that you can
> > use more turns on your primary? I'm no expert myself but I'm thinking
> more
> > primary turns and slightly less tank capacitance is better than very few
> > primary turns and a large tank capacitance. Perhaps someone else could
> > chime in here with better qualifications?
> >
> > Regards,
> > Matt Lewis, Fairlee VT
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Douglas Johnson <doug379306@xxxxxxxxx>
> > To: Tesla Coil Mailing List <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
> > Sent: Sun, Feb 17, 2019 4:24 pm
> > Subject: Re: [TCML] Coupling
> >
> > Hi Gary, Thank you, You can probably tell from most of my posts that I
> am
> > not very technical concerning this stuff, but I have an insatiable
> appetite
> > to learn. That said, I am continuing to try to improve the performance of
> > this little coil, since the video I have improved tuning until l now I am
> > getting " breakouts" from both ends. When I get the coil tuned to what I
> > think is optimum, which may include working to improve the primary. {I
> > think I have too many turns on it because I am down to using only about
> > three}, I will do another video, so any requests or instruction on what
> to
> > look for would be helpful.
> > Doug
> > _______________________________________________
> > Tesla mailing list
> > Tesla@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > https://www.pupman.com/mailman/listinfo/tesla
> >
> _______________________________________________
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>
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