large spark to size ratio
HvHaxor05, Fri Nov 16 2007, 08:06PMim going to wind 12" on a 3.5" pvc form with 36G wire (yes i know its alot of winding)
the primary will be 90* with steel wire and a tap.
the powersupply will be a 7.5kv 30ma NST
the cap will be a 12"X6" salt water cap (glass)
sparkgap will be a multi gap
filters will be made
topload is to be experimented with
i attached a pic of my wanted setup
i will prob get very large spars from this coil
Re: large spark to size ratio
HvHaxor05, Fri Nov 16 2007, 08:08PM
HvHaxor05, Fri Nov 16 2007, 08:08PM
Re: large spark to size ratio
Tesladownunder, Sat Nov 17 2007, 01:07AM
You will not get big sparks from this coil.
You should:
1 Use a copper, not steel primary.
2 Use a gauge of wire that allows around 1000 turns (36G may be too small, I think).
3 Have your gap across the transformer input (rather than capacitor).
4 Make a toroid from airconditioning ducting. Don't mount it as high as you have shown.
5 I'm not sure you understand what a salt water cap is. It is NOT glass plates 12x6 inches.
6 Use a spell checker, punctuation and capitalization. Regard it as practice for life when you have to communicate with people who can write properly (like teachers, employers etc)
TDU
Tesladownunder, Sat Nov 17 2007, 01:07AM
You will not get big sparks from this coil.
You should:
1 Use a copper, not steel primary.
2 Use a gauge of wire that allows around 1000 turns (36G may be too small, I think).
3 Have your gap across the transformer input (rather than capacitor).
4 Make a toroid from airconditioning ducting. Don't mount it as high as you have shown.
5 I'm not sure you understand what a salt water cap is. It is NOT glass plates 12x6 inches.
6 Use a spell checker, punctuation and capitalization. Regard it as practice for life when you have to communicate with people who can write properly (like teachers, employers etc)
TDU
Re: large spark to size ratio
HvHaxor05, Sat Nov 17 2007, 03:50AM
this coil is an experimental coil so im going to stick with my 36g wire
i will move the gap
i got spun top loads from my other coils, and im nervous to mount lower because i don't want it to arc to my primary i made a hv filter for the nst (baced off
(found on your site, witch i love) and a basic mains filter and ballast (pulls about 3A so i don't need a ballast but i cave a control box setup soooo)
i know what a salt water cap is mine is a glass jar that is 12" high and 6" wide filled with saltwater and covered in tinfoil
it works i have used it with other coils)
[color]
unfortunately after great depression i smoked alot of pot fucking up my spelling and shit
i have been clean for a year and tesla coils helped that
HvHaxor05, Sat Nov 17 2007, 03:50AM
Tesladownunder wrote ...
You will not get big sparks from this coil.
You should:
1 Use a copper, not steel primary.
2 Use a gauge of wire that allows around 1000 turns (36G may be too small, I think).
3 Have your gap across the transformer input (rather than capacitor).
4 Make a toroid from airconditioning ducting. Don't mount it as high as you have shown.
5 I'm not sure you understand what a salt water cap is. It is NOT glass plates 12x6 inches.
6 Use a spell checker, punctuation and capitalization. Regard it as practice for life when you have to communicate with people who can write properly (like teachers, employers etc)
TDU
i replaced it with copper wireYou will not get big sparks from this coil.
You should:
1 Use a copper, not steel primary.
2 Use a gauge of wire that allows around 1000 turns (36G may be too small, I think).
3 Have your gap across the transformer input (rather than capacitor).
4 Make a toroid from airconditioning ducting. Don't mount it as high as you have shown.
5 I'm not sure you understand what a salt water cap is. It is NOT glass plates 12x6 inches.
6 Use a spell checker, punctuation and capitalization. Regard it as practice for life when you have to communicate with people who can write properly (like teachers, employers etc)
TDU
this coil is an experimental coil so im going to stick with my 36g wire
i will move the gap
i got spun top loads from my other coils, and im nervous to mount lower because i don't want it to arc to my primary i made a hv filter for the nst (baced off
(found on your site, witch i love) and a basic mains filter and ballast (pulls about 3A so i don't need a ballast but i cave a control box setup soooo)i know what a salt water cap is mine is a glass jar that is 12" high and 6" wide filled with saltwater and covered in tinfoil
it works i have used it with other coils)[color]
unfortunately after great depression i smoked alot of pot fucking up my spelling and shit
i have been clean for a year and tesla coils helped that
Re: large spark to size ratio
J. Aaron Holmes, Sat Nov 17 2007, 10:38PM
Putting the toroid too high increases your risk of breakout and corona on the top windings of your secondary (which can ruin it pretty quick!). Putting the toroid too low will, I believe, effectively decouple the top windings of your secondary, making them ineffective and decreasing performance. So there is definitely a "sweet spot", but fortunately that also happens to be the best-looking location (aesthetically speaking) in most cases. For a small table-top coil like you seem to be building, I can't see putting the toroid more than a couple of inches above the secondary. Anything much more or less than this will hurt both the performance and appearance of your coil. After all, a toroid floating one foot over the top of your foot-long secondary will look...well...pretty dumb, IMHO.
Instead, work out a topload and breakout point configuration that encourages sparks to go upward and away from your primary. Perhaps controversially, I expect a sphere would be better for this than a toroid. On larger coils, spheres tend to become impractical for a variety of reasons. For small coils, tape a couple of cheapo metal mixing bowls together, stick a nail on top and call it done. Spheres naturally tend to direct the streamers upward. A breakout point (which will be required unless your sphere is undersized) will virtually guarantee this. I experimented with a variety of toploads on my first coil some years ago. It was 3.5" x 20". In the end, I found I could easily squeeze four-foot-long streamers out of it (more than twice the length of the secondary) by using a near-sphere made from two Ikea stainless mixing bowls. I also experimented quite a bit with coupling. The primary was a helical wound on a plastic bucket, and at one point I had the primary lowered almost halfway into the bucket, putting the top turn of the primary only about 12-15" from the topload. Still, the smoothness of the sphere prevented primary strikes, despite the nearly four-foot-long streamers coming off the top of it.
Have fun!
Cheers,
Aaron, N7OE
J. Aaron Holmes, Sat Nov 17 2007, 10:38PM
Putting the toroid too high increases your risk of breakout and corona on the top windings of your secondary (which can ruin it pretty quick!). Putting the toroid too low will, I believe, effectively decouple the top windings of your secondary, making them ineffective and decreasing performance. So there is definitely a "sweet spot", but fortunately that also happens to be the best-looking location (aesthetically speaking) in most cases. For a small table-top coil like you seem to be building, I can't see putting the toroid more than a couple of inches above the secondary. Anything much more or less than this will hurt both the performance and appearance of your coil. After all, a toroid floating one foot over the top of your foot-long secondary will look...well...pretty dumb, IMHO.
Instead, work out a topload and breakout point configuration that encourages sparks to go upward and away from your primary. Perhaps controversially, I expect a sphere would be better for this than a toroid. On larger coils, spheres tend to become impractical for a variety of reasons. For small coils, tape a couple of cheapo metal mixing bowls together, stick a nail on top and call it done. Spheres naturally tend to direct the streamers upward. A breakout point (which will be required unless your sphere is undersized) will virtually guarantee this. I experimented with a variety of toploads on my first coil some years ago. It was 3.5" x 20". In the end, I found I could easily squeeze four-foot-long streamers out of it (more than twice the length of the secondary) by using a near-sphere made from two Ikea stainless mixing bowls. I also experimented quite a bit with coupling. The primary was a helical wound on a plastic bucket, and at one point I had the primary lowered almost halfway into the bucket, putting the top turn of the primary only about 12-15" from the topload. Still, the smoothness of the sphere prevented primary strikes, despite the nearly four-foot-long streamers coming off the top of it.
Have fun!
Cheers,
Aaron, N7OE
Re: large spark to size ratio
Derek_L, Sat Nov 17 2007, 10:54PM
Here is what he is talking about with the breakout at the secondary,
As you can see my coil is breaking out at the secondary.
My topload is also to small but I did that to have more breakouts as opposed to larger spark.
Hope this helps,
Derek L
Derek_L, Sat Nov 17 2007, 10:54PM
Here is what he is talking about with the breakout at the secondary,
As you can see my coil is breaking out at the secondary.
My topload is also to small but I did that to have more breakouts as opposed to larger spark.
Hope this helps,
Derek L
Re: large spark to size ratio
HvHaxor05, Sun Nov 18 2007, 06:05AM
1 thanks for helping with a very long reply.
2 im not worried about appearance although if it docent hurt performance i will go the extra mile
3 i LOVE those sunglasses it brings out my inner "green" self
ok here is the topload
i thought that winding a bunch of 28g wire around the topload support would help breakout but i also scored some clay from the ceramics room that i thought of putting around that
my breakout is going to be a VERY VERY VERY sharp peace of steel
if you still suggest a circular topload how big should i make it
HvHaxor05, Sun Nov 18 2007, 06:05AM
J. Aaron Holmes wrote ...
Putting the toroid too high increases your risk of breakout and corona on the top windings of your secondary (which can ruin it pretty quick!). Putting the toroid too low will, I believe, effectively decouple the top windings of your secondary, making them ineffective and decreasing performance. So there is definitely a "sweet spot", but fortunately that also happens to be the best-looking location (aesthetically speaking) in most cases. For a small table-top coil like you seem to be building, I can't see putting the toroid more than a couple of inches above the secondary. Anything much more or less than this will hurt both the performance and appearance of your coil. After all, a toroid floating one foot over the top of your foot-long secondary will look...well...pretty dumb, IMHO.
Instead, work out a topload and breakout point configuration that encourages sparks to go upward and away from your primary. Perhaps controversially, I expect a sphere would be better for this than a toroid. On larger coils, spheres tend to become impractical for a variety of reasons. For small coils, tape a couple of cheapo metal mixing bowls together, stick a nail on top and call it done. Spheres naturally tend to direct the streamers upward. A breakout point (which will be required unless your sphere is undersized) will virtually guarantee this. I experimented with a variety of toploads on my first coil some years ago. It was 3.5" x 20". In the end, I found I could easily squeeze four-foot-long streamers out of it (more than twice the length of the secondary) by using a near-sphere made from two Ikea stainless mixing bowls. I also experimented quite a bit with coupling. The primary was a helical wound on a plastic bucket, and at one point I had the primary lowered almost halfway into the bucket, putting the top turn of the primary only about 12-15" from the topload. Still, the smoothness of the sphere prevented primary strikes, despite the nearly four-foot-long streamers coming off the top of it.
Have fun!
Cheers,
Aaron, N7OE
Putting the toroid too high increases your risk of breakout and corona on the top windings of your secondary (which can ruin it pretty quick!). Putting the toroid too low will, I believe, effectively decouple the top windings of your secondary, making them ineffective and decreasing performance. So there is definitely a "sweet spot", but fortunately that also happens to be the best-looking location (aesthetically speaking) in most cases. For a small table-top coil like you seem to be building, I can't see putting the toroid more than a couple of inches above the secondary. Anything much more or less than this will hurt both the performance and appearance of your coil. After all, a toroid floating one foot over the top of your foot-long secondary will look...well...pretty dumb, IMHO.
Instead, work out a topload and breakout point configuration that encourages sparks to go upward and away from your primary. Perhaps controversially, I expect a sphere would be better for this than a toroid. On larger coils, spheres tend to become impractical for a variety of reasons. For small coils, tape a couple of cheapo metal mixing bowls together, stick a nail on top and call it done. Spheres naturally tend to direct the streamers upward. A breakout point (which will be required unless your sphere is undersized) will virtually guarantee this. I experimented with a variety of toploads on my first coil some years ago. It was 3.5" x 20". In the end, I found I could easily squeeze four-foot-long streamers out of it (more than twice the length of the secondary) by using a near-sphere made from two Ikea stainless mixing bowls. I also experimented quite a bit with coupling. The primary was a helical wound on a plastic bucket, and at one point I had the primary lowered almost halfway into the bucket, putting the top turn of the primary only about 12-15" from the topload. Still, the smoothness of the sphere prevented primary strikes, despite the nearly four-foot-long streamers coming off the top of it.
Have fun!
Cheers,
Aaron, N7OE
1 thanks for helping with a very long reply.
2 im not worried about appearance although if it docent hurt performance i will go the extra mile
3 i LOVE those sunglasses it brings out my inner "green" self
ok here is the topload
i thought that winding a bunch of 28g wire around the topload support would help breakout but i also scored some clay from the ceramics room that i thought of putting around that
my breakout is going to be a VERY VERY VERY sharp peace of steel
if you still suggest a circular topload how big should i make it
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