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Re: sonotube coil
Hi Alan,
Nice coil. I had to reply as your coil is almost "identical" to my own. I'm
using sonutube as well - 12.5" x 44" (18 awg) for the secondary. Primary is
3/8" diam. and spacing. Pole pig driven system. Last July before I moved to CA,
I ran it outside the garage and was hitting about 85" average sparks and
periodic spark lengths around 90 - 95". I too was breaking out at about 3 - 4
streamers at a time. I couldn't get away from this with the toroid I was using.
The gap used was a SRSG G10/tungsten at 240BPS. The cap size used was 0.04uF.
Your cap size does appear large, but apparently was charging just fine.
Assuming you are at 120 BPS at your gap? Say, you didn't happen to measure
input power, did you? It would be interesting to note the spark length to power
input.
I just got my own coil operational this last weekend. I ran it in the garage
and hit house wiring running along a cross beam 50" from the coil (lit up every
light in the garage). I'll have to move the house wiring back on one of the
cross beams nearer to the house before I can run in the garage again. It will
be interesting to compare our coils from time to time in the future since they
are very similar.
Great work on your coil Alan,
Bart
>
> Original Poster: ajones-at-pointlink-dot-net
>
> I thought I would post the results of my latest coil firings and see
> if anyone had any comments.
>
> The specs are:
> 2 5000v 300ma transformers connected anti-parallel and driven with
> 140vac.
> .095uF capacitance consisting of an mmc plus a .01uF Fair Radio cap.
> sync-rotary gap.
> 11 turn primary of 3/8" copper tube with 3/8" spacing between turns.
> 12-3/4" x 48" sonotube wound full length with 20gauge magnet wire.
> 9-1/2" x 49" drain pipe toroid which is way too heavy.
>
> With this setup last night, it was hitting 95" several times. The
> toroid was breaking out in three or four places and hitting the ground
> all around the coil. If it hadn't been for the extra breakouts, maybe
> could have gotten even more length though probably not much. I did try
> for more length but couldn't get it. I use an aluminum ladder to take
> hits and had it closed up leaning against the house. Tried moving it
> and using a length of copper water pipe which would have been a lot
> more sparklength if it had hit. Maybe not enough surface area to
> attract the sparks?
>
> All comments welcome, even if you think I'm using way too much
> capacitance for a Tesla coil :-)
>
> Later,
> Alan
> _____________________________
> ajones-at-pointlink-dot-net
> ICQ #21057220