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Registered Member #42712
Joined: Fri Jan 10 2014, 01:21AM
Location:
Posts: 21
I have been working on a tesla coil, but I am confused why a ballast increases the output, while no ballast leaves us with practically no arcs.
Here is a clip without any ballast:
Here is a clip with one secondary shorted MOT
Here is two MOTs used in parallel with each other for a ballast
I thought a ballast should just be used to prevent your circuit breaker from popping due to too much current... Why is the ballast making the output have larger arcs than with no ballast??
What ballast can we implement to have the best arcs?
Registered Member #1521
Joined: Thu Jun 05 2008, 10:46AM
Location: Hungary
Posts: 128
A little more information would be useful. I know only one case, when this could happen, but not with MOTs. We used a low drop pole transformer about 16kVA and 5%, and because its low drop, the spark gap was arcing and there was no output. I placed a big resistance on the primary side (a lot of hairdriers) and it gave immediately 1,5m spakrs without any other thing changed. But it's not the case with your coil, as MOTs are internally current limited, their drop is around 20-50%. Maybe something in your circuit is arcing over from the excess voltage.
Registered Member #42712
Joined: Fri Jan 10 2014, 01:21AM
Location:
Posts: 21
omegalabs wrote ...
A little more information would be useful. I know only one case, when this could happen, but not with MOTs. We used a low drop pole transformer about 16kVA and 5%, and because its low drop, the spark gap was arcing and there was no output. I placed a big resistance on the primary side (a lot of hairdriers) and it gave immediately 1,5m spakrs without any other thing changed. But it's not the case with your coil, as MOTs are internally current limited, their drop is around 20-50%. Maybe something in your circuit is arcing over from the excess voltage.
May it have to do with the asyncronous spark gap? It seems like the arcs are even failing to bridge the gap on the Spark Gap when the tesla coil is activated without a ballast.
Registered Member #4074
Joined: Mon Aug 29 2011, 06:58AM
Location: Australia
Posts: 335
skyler wrote ...
May it have to do with the asyncronous spark gap? It seems like the arcs are even failing to bridge the gap on the Spark Gap when the tesla coil is activated without a ballast.
What sort of power supply are you using? I'm assuming its a stack of MOTs, since you are using some for ballasting. If you have an open-circuit voltage of only ~4kV you might have trouble getting the gap to fire reliably. How large is the capacitor? I had a situation once where the tank capacitor was far too small for the amount of current the supply could push, and it resulted in the spark gap forming hot power arcs. If it's too big your supply may struggle to charge it before the gap electrodes line up. Or you might have a situation where the combined inductance of the ballast MOTs and the tank capacitor are causing the voltage to ring up slightly beyond the turns ratio, allowing the gap to fire more consistently.
I'm not sure how likely any of those are, but without pictures of the setup I can't think of much else.
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Ballast Vs. Arc output
