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Registered Member #480
Joined: Thu Jul 06 2006, 07:08PM
Location: North America
Posts: 644
IR -
Replace ALL FOUR caps that were at the ends of your strings.
(That is, replace the two END capacitors from EACH of your two strings of six caps. The four caps in the center of each string were "shorted" by your green jumper wires, so they never saw any voltage at all.)
Your sketch correctly shows the interconnects between caps, resistors and MOVs for a single "string".
Well this definitely makes sense of why they kept blowing
I appreciate the help you've provided me. Hoping to get it all put back together and have it fired up this weekend again.
Being that I get this corrected this time around, will this increase the power to the primary coil and in-turn make my secondary actually work properly and have greater streamer than my 4-6" ones Ive had?
Ive read on here a little bit that the safety gap does need to be gaped correctly. From reading on another thread it says to disconnect everything and just connect up the NS1 and NS2 straight to the safety gap. I'm guessing though that I do need to keep the ground in the center of the terry filter connected up still though.
When doing this, I just keep spreading the gap farther apart until there is no spark, and then just move it a tad more back and this should be where the gap needs to be set?
Registered Member #480
Joined: Thu Jul 06 2006, 07:08PM
Location: North America
Posts: 644
IR -
"Technically" you will have a tiny bit more current available from your NST that's not being "wasted" in heating your bleeder resistors (was 40 megohms across the NST, now will be 120 megohms). Realistically, this won't make much of an improvement.
If you're only getting 4-6 inch thin blue arcs, it's almost certain that you're badly out of tune. Assuming it's properly designed and constructed, a 12/30 NST powered system should easily produce 12-18" arcs without much tuning, and 24" or better is achievable if everything is optimized.
Post additional photos of every main component of your coil: primary spark gap, all the interconnecting wiring in your tank circuit, your MMC, whatever type of "tap" you're using to connect to your primary coil, the secondary, the topload and how it's connected to the secondary wire, etc.
Please plug all your design data into JAVATC to get a complete design overview.This will greatly simplify any troubleshooting that needs to be done.
"Technically" you will have a tiny bit more current available from your NST that's not being "wasted" in heating your bleeder resistors (was 40 megohms across the NST, now will be 120 megohms). Realistically, this won't make much of an improvement.
If you're only getting 4-6 inch thin blue arcs, it's almost certain that you're badly out of tune. Assuming it's properly designed and constructed, a 12/30 NST powered system should easily produce 12-18" arcs without much tuning, and 24" or better is achievable if everything is optimized.
Post additional photos of every main component of your coil: primary spark gap, all the interconnecting wiring in your tank circuit, your MMC, whatever type of "tap" you're using to connect to your primary coil, the secondary, the topload and how it's connected to the secondary wire, etc.
Please plug all your design data into JAVATC to get a complete design overview.This will greatly simplify any troubleshooting that needs to be done.
Herr Zapp
Well atleast the tesla coil will be properly running now with the filter.
Now im using a 20amp variac o-135vac 60hz.
Ive only had it up to 100, Is taking it all the way up to 135 going to be alright?
At the moment im moving my coil over to a more suitable base. So I took some images that will hopefully help may be eliminate any wrong connections Ive made.
Now heres a question for you. Im not sure if I completely connected this up right but the NST. There is a P1 and P2 that I know the main power cable bolts to. Then the S1 and S2 goes to the terry filter. My question about that is, does it matter which side of S1 and S2 connect to on the terry filter? and then what about P1 and P2. Does it matter what part of the power cord connects to P1 and P2? ( The Positive and Negative)
My toroid is 3" thick, and 15" wide. connected using a 3" copper bolt. At the bottom of the bolt is a copper lug connecter. The top of the secondary is connected by taking a crimp and just crimping it down. I didn't know you couldn't solder magnet wire, or at least I couldn't get it! The secondary coil is wrapped using 1500' of 26 awg magnet wire wrapped around a 4" pipe and the total wrapping height is 19 1/2".
The Primary coil is using 50' of 1/4" thick copper tubing. The the most part its all straight, there some slight small bends in the tubing from trying to get it on the mounts. Im using a glass tube type fuse holder.
The main spark gap is just a standard gap. Using 2" tungsten rods on ceramic insulators. The gap is at 1/4".
Hopefully this info may help a little. There are some more pictures listed below.
Registered Member #480
Joined: Thu Jul 06 2006, 07:08PM
Location: North America
Posts: 644
IR -
Photos of your spark gap and MMC?
You won't get optimum performance using only a single-segment spark gap; look up "TCBOR gap" or "RQ gap", and build a multi-segment gap using 3" long pieces of 1/2" or 3/4" dia. copper pipe.
What did JAVATC tell you your current primary/secondary coupling factor ("K factor") is? You might want to increase it somewhat.
You won't get optimum performance using only a single-segment spark gap; look up "TCBOR gap" or "RQ gap", and build a multi-segment gap using 3" long pieces of 1/2" or 3/4" dia. copper pipe.
What did JAVATC tell you your current primary/secondary coupling factor ("K factor") is? You might want to increase it somewhat.
Herr Zapp
Ive posted a picture below of some plans to build this gap. Does that look correct to you?
Registered Member #3806
Joined: Sat Apr 02 2011, 09:20PM
Location: France
Posts: 259
IRISHLUCK wrote ...
Philgood: I did not.....I didn't know it was removable honestly. Do I just take a lighter to it?
That might explain the short thin arcs, yes you must do it, use fine sandpaper to remove enamel on 1cm lenght (make sure you remove enamel all around the wire), then put a new crimp and solder your magnet wire to it.
I can see on your pics you can easilly do it on top of secondary, as you have some spare lenght, I hope you can do the same at the bottom connection of your secondary.
I'm not shore about this so someone please correct me if I'm wrong but if the total voltage rating of the mov's is grater then the total voltage rating of the caps wont the caps fail befor the mov's kick in to protect them?
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First time Tesla builder, Terry Filter caps popping?
