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Registered Member #3075
Joined: Fri Aug 06 2010, 02:44PM
Location: Athens, GA
Posts: 148
Planning my copper coupling multi segment spark gap, and was thinking of using 1mm thick nylon washers in between the segments to keep the gaps even.
I know they get hot, but with the copper pipes is there enough dissipation to make this doable, or is there enough heat generated in these to melt the nylon?
Anyone tried this, or have a better way to reliably space the segments?
Registered Member #160
Joined: Mon Feb 13 2006, 02:07AM
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posts: 938
Spark gap gets fairly hot so I wouldn't put nylon between the pipes. You can put something between them to set the gaps and then remove them. Usually people just make more gaps then is needed and then tap it where they want. I usually leave them as set then throw another pipe or two on them to short out sections, whether I want to run full power or reduced. Hope this helps.
Registered Member #480
Joined: Thu Jul 06 2006, 07:08PM
Location: North America
Posts: 644
HMM -
Two primary factors detrermine how hot your pipe segments will get: how much heat energy is being transferred into the pipe segments, and how much heat energy is being removed from the pipes by conduction and airflow. The thermal mass of your pipes also is a factor in the typically intermittant Tesla coil operating mode.
From a strictly thermal standpoint, if you are using a single 30ma NST and have a fairly good flowrate of cooling air, your pipes probably won't get hot enough to melt nylon. The larger problem will be the potential for arc tracking across the surface of the nylon. Nylon is very hygroscopic, and is not a good HV insulating material. The arc will simply take the path of least resistance, which will be across the surface of the nylon, rather than jumping the air gap. The nylon will quickly carbonize, and your gap will be "short-circuited".
I'd STRONGLY recommend that you NOT use nylon washers as spacers between pipe segments. The design of your gap should be such that ANY potential surface-tracking arc-path is a minimum of 8-10X longer than the air-gap space between each pair of pipe segments.
Registered Member #3075
Joined: Fri Aug 06 2010, 02:44PM
Location: Athens, GA
Posts: 148
Which is what I plan on doing...
I was worried about keeping it consistent, as I have concerns about getting the bolt holes to line up perfectly.
With a spacer in place, there could be a slight amount of pressure leaning the pipes toward each other, which would result in them touching if the spacer were removed. If I could have used them and a nylon rod, I could have bound them in place with perfect spacing.
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Reliable spacing in multi segment spark gap?
