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Coillah's First Coil

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LAN_403

Firefox

Wed Sept 03 2008, 07:40PM

Registered Member #1389 Joined: Thu Mar 13 2008, 12:50AM
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Posts: 346

You could cut notches instead of drilling holes. That way all you have to do is lay the pipe in the notches.

coillah

Wed Sept 03 2008, 08:08PM

Registered Member #1517 Joined: Wed Jun 04 2008, 06:55AM
Location: Chico CA
Posts: 304

I did that, and the lexan broke

coillah

Thu Sept 04 2008, 03:23AM

Registered Member #1517 Joined: Wed Jun 04 2008, 06:55AM
Location: Chico CA
Posts: 304

Sealant for the secondary, what should I use?

Shellac?
Laquer?

Heres a pic of my new/old franceformer:
Franceformer POWER!

Kristian

Thu Sept 04 2008, 04:20PM

Registered Member #611 Joined: Wed Mar 28 2007, 11:40PM
Location: Hudsonville, Michigan
Posts: 79

coillah wrote ...

Sealant for the secondary, what should I use?

I would recommend two part epoxy furniture finish. They have it at Home Depot or similar home improvement stores. Ask for bar coat epoxy in the paint department. It covers the same as about 50 coats of varnish in one coat. I used it on my most resent coil, and I will never go back to using anything else.

coillah

Fri Sept 26 2008, 01:10AM

Registered Member #1517 Joined: Wed Jun 04 2008, 06:55AM
Location: Chico CA
Posts: 304

Hello World of HV addicts.

I just came here to give a little update about my progress last night. I managed to finish painting one side of my base, and assemble the capacitor bank. Now that the bank is done I feel like the coil is actually coming together, its a very exciting feeling.

My plan is to mill the lexan pieces next week and form the primary, praying that the lexan doesnt break again in the process (its fairly thin...). I am finishing the painting on a few other parts of the base. Hopefully next week monday I'll have the base assembled with parts starting to go in.

Here's a couple of pics:

Cap Bank
Coil coming together

Wooo crazy!

I have a huge circuits II test next week... four problems at 5 points each. -3 for a wrong NUMERICAL answer. 15% of the grade... I must study.

Peace!

coillah

Wed Nov 05 2008, 10:07AM

Registered Member #1517 Joined: Wed Jun 04 2008, 06:55AM
Location: Chico CA
Posts: 304

Ok guys I have some news!

After a long time of running around my school trying to get that primary coil wound, I finally settled on creating a small device to get the copper into the appropriate shape.

I used two relatively thick pieces of particle board and bolted them together, using washers I made a gap between them that was just a hair larger than .25in. The copper tubing is .25 in in OD. Then I started winding, and success!!

But this wasnt enough for me. My pieces of lexan were just not cutting it. They were dinky and I wanted some beef for my coil. So I went over to the CNC machine shop. After I got to know the professor and some of the students I asked them to help me build some pieces for my coil. They were absolutely into it and even offered me some really nice, thick plexiglass for free! After deciding on a final design for my part, a student helped me configure an automatic CNC mill to do the cuts for the slots. The cuts came out perfectly of course and were done in about 10 minutes!

While I was jawing around with the manufacturing majors I had to get the professor to give me some help. He required that I bring him a drawing of my part that I needed. So I made him a drawing in solidworks, and designed it in inches. But I couldnt figure out how to change the dimensions from metric, so when I handed it to him he immediately saw that it was designed in inches but dimensioned in metric! I caught a lot of crap for it, but it was hilarious anyways.

After I had my shiny new coil form all ready to go it only took a little while for me to secure them down to my platform and press the preformed copper into the slots. Boy does it look nice... but I dont want to show you until the coil is all done. I am working on it again tomorrow night and friday if I need to. But either way it should be epic!

coil on my friends!

coillah

Fri Nov 07 2008, 05:01AM

Registered Member #1517 Joined: Wed Jun 04 2008, 06:55AM
Location: Chico CA
Posts: 304

The coil works. I finished it today and was playing with it all night long. I wanted to post and tell you guys! Its amazing...

My longest spark length was about 3', exactly what my coil can output. I am so stoked... I will put up pictures later...

Andyman

Fri Nov 07 2008, 04:36PM

Registered Member #1083 Joined: Mon Oct 29 2007, 06:16PM
Location: Upland, California
Posts: 256

I found that LDPE works much better for a primary support, because it is not so hard and brittle. I drilled holes slightly bigger than the tubing and then used a router bit slightly smaller to mill out the slots. That way, the tubing locks into place once it reaches the full size hole.
But congrats on the success! My 4.5 inch only gives me 22 inch sparks. Of course, I'm using a little 9/60 transformer.
Oh, and for cleaning the copper tubing, muriatic acid (aka. hydrochloric acid) works miracles on oxidized copper. Once you clean it though, you HAVE to put some sort of thin layer of oil on it, or it will oxidize within a few hours because it's so clean.

coillah

Fri Nov 07 2008, 06:04PM

Registered Member #1517 Joined: Wed Jun 04 2008, 06:55AM
Location: Chico CA
Posts: 304

The coil!!

So a few problems have been observed. I believe I need to fine tune my capacitor bank to match the BPS of the circuit. My rsg is running at 120 bps, and my xfrmr is 15k/30m, with a 7.5nF mmc. Im going to lower it to 7.0 ish.

I have terrible flash-overs and racing sparks. My secondary needs a lot more coating. I have even had some arcing from the secondary to the primary, just through the coil. My primary at the center is about .75in from the secondary. If this is too close all I have to do is flip the primary form around and I'll get about 1in.

Also, should I see my safety gap fire when I have primary to secondary arcing? (note it does not arc from the toroid to the primary, just from the coil) Cause I dont... perhaps I should tune it closer...

Thanks for the input guys, hope you enjoy!

Arcstarter

Fri Nov 07 2008, 09:06PM

Registered Member #1225 Joined: Sat Jan 12 2008, 01:24AM
Location: Beaumont, Texas, USA
Posts: 2253

Very nice!! Gets much better sparks than mine with a 12kv 60ma nst... But then again my secondary sucked and had a few shorted turns. But anyway, about the racing sparks, it could just be the coupling. Just raise or lower the secondary, until they the racing sparks stop. You could just stick something under the coil(NON CONDUCTIVE!) to raise it or to lower it you would have to either cut some of the secondary form or just raise the primary somehow.

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