The nearest Essex distributor with stock that doesn't mind a small sale
gets the order. I like their inverter grade wire. With thicker guages, the
weight of wire goes up fast and if you play it right, you don't end up
with a useless amount of wire leftover. Bigger spools unwind nicer too,
although it doesn't matter for stuff like 28 guage. Copper work hardens
pretty fast too, so again, with thicker wires you want to get things right
the first time if looks matter. Shiny varnish will bring out all the ugly.
For say a medium sized coil on 6" PVC with say 30" of windings with 20
gauge the math comes out to aound 25 turns per inch, and 1227 feet, which
is around 4 pounds. I'd just a 10lb spool and make another coil or two vs.
ending up with 25% of unusable scrap.
Work hardening is why people get drunk looking primaries when using
refrigeration tubing. It's a pain to clean off the scale, but you can sort
of anneal copper with a propane torch. Acetylene works much better. Same
tricks apply to these- buy new and in the largest size (diameter of
packaging) you can, and use the absolute minimum number of bending cycles
during production.
On Tue, 23 Nov 2021, Joshua Thomas wrote:
> I?m not sure where you?re buying from, but 8 oz of 28awg magnet wire, 155C
> polyurethane insulation, is a whopping $14.14 straight from Remmington
> Industries. Manufacturer is Elektrisola.
>
> That size was just over the amount I needed to wind my 3.5? x 16? coil.
>
> If you want the heavy-build wire, that?s $1 more, and you get about 10 ft
> less.
>
> If you want to go all the way up to the 240C polymide insulation, that goes
> up to $38.41? but no one in any reading I?ve done has ever given any
> indication that is necessary.
>
> I?ve still spent more money on my CDE caps than all the magnet wire I have
> combined.
>
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 23, 2021 at 11:25 PM <pupman.com@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> The fancy toroids have problems too, mostly cost, availability and then
>> they're heavy and completely overkill from a mechanical perspective. I
>> guess they do look cool compared to everything else.
>>
>> Has anyone done a "bulk buy" of these recently? The shop that made mine
>> went defunct long ago.
>>
>> I can wind pretty much any size coil that can be reasonably shipped or
>> picked up from the Chicago area. You might be in for a surprise though
>> when it comes to the price of materials alone. Magnet wire comes in 5
>> pound spools and up Even these are basically considered sample sizes. I'd
>> never buy respooled ebay specials. If the wire doesn't have a wrapper from
>> the manufacturer you don't know how knotted up it is, who made it or why
>> it was rejected in the first place. PVC drain pipe isn't too bad,
>> fiberlgass tubing is tens of dollars a foot now. hardware store
>> polyurethane varnish is cheap (and works fine), fancy engineered coatings
>> are not. Most of the good stuff is not compatible with PVC either. The sky
>> and your wallet are the limit. If anyone wants to to throw money at
>> problems, you can contact me directly. I'd save the money for a frequency
>> generator though.
>>
>> My first secondaries were garbage and have to be redone multiple times.
>> Same for the person who got me started in coiling. The best was the coil
>> what was wound before realizing the magnet wire was just really old bare
>> wire with a patina that had no varnish insulation at all. Other rediculous
>> attempts were trying to use actual transformer varnish from a transformer
>> factory.
>>
>> Your first coil works, so that's always a plus. It only gets better from
>> there as you refine your design and constuction techniques.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 23 Nov 2021, Joshua Thomas wrote:
>>
>>> Thank you!
>>>
>>> My topload is covered with copper foil. The base is dryer tube. While
>>> cheap, it is difficult to get a strongly smooth surface from it. I am
>>> jealous of those who can get the smooth spun-aluminum toroids.
>>>
>>> On the topic, can anyone recommend a service that will create secondary
>>> coils to specification? I am fairly bad at this and it?s one area I would
>>> be willing to spend a little money.
>>>
>>> Joshua Thomas
>>>
>>> On Tue, Nov 23, 2021 at 10:20 AM <pupman.com@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Joshua,
>>>>
>>>> The arcs look and sound great in this video. They grow and move vs.
>>>> appear once and vanish. It does looks like there may be too many
>>>> breakout/sharp points on the toroid though, and lots of energy is being
>>>> lost. A light wrap of foil might smooth things out enough to allow
>>>> fewer, but longer and more developed streamers.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 11/21/2021 4:03 PM, Joshua Thomas wrote:
>>>>
>>>> <content trimmed>
>>>>> These were used with 3 between each HV rail and RF ground. The caps
>>>> caught
>>>>> on fire after short use. You can see video of that event here:
>>>>> https://youtube.com/shorts/Sx_lHwjR_bs?feature=share
>>>>>
>>>>> (I should likely have shut this down sooner)
>>>> <content trimmed>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>> To unsubscribe send an email to tcml-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>
>>> --
>>> Joshua Thomas
>>>
>>> My new email address is: joshuafthomas@xxxxxxxxx
>>> Please update your information if you have not already done so.
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Tesla mailing list -- tcml@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> To unsubscribe send an email to tcml-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> _______________________________________________
>> Tesla mailing list -- tcml@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> To unsubscribe send an email to tcml-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>
> --
> Joshua Thomas
>
> My new email address is: joshuafthomas@xxxxxxxxx
> Please update your information if you have not already done so.
>