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Registered Member #1731
Joined: Thu Oct 02 2008, 02:22PM
Location: Indiana
Posts: 52
Does anyone know what effect the diameter of wire used in the primary coil has on the performance of a Tesla coil.
I'm working on the optimal configuration for a small TC and it would be more convenient if I could replace the 0.25 copper tubing with some 0.125" solid wire. I could get more turns into the limited space I have.
Will I incur a significant loss by reducing the size of the primary wire?
Teslamap doesn't indicate that it makes that much difference, just as long as I can hit resonance.
Registered Member #2628
Joined: Fri Jan 15 2010, 12:23AM
Location:
Posts: 627
What is the operating frequency this coil will see? What are you building, a spark gapped coil? solid state?
Usually you'd want a low loss primary by having it with the least resistance as possible, but skin effect comes into play at different frequencies, where that extra thickness is just unused conductor. copper tubing is usually a nice way to go, but to really decide weather or not a thicker or thinner primary will either be more beneficial, or will just be wasted copper, we would need a ballpark figure on the operating frequency of the primary, and the driving style behind your coil, although for spark gapped coils, ive not noted too great off a loss with tubing, I dont think you can go wrong with that stuff
As for the 0.25" tubing VS the 0.125" wire, if it need be that thin, I would just go get some 1/8" copper tubing. Id guess that this coil is a small-medium sized one, but I think the 1/8" tubing will be less lossy compared to the wire.
Another question is, how many turns are in the primary? coupling? impedance is also a limiting factor where we will not need too thick of a primary coil, although Ive mostly seen this with solid state coils, not so much for spark gapped (at least in any that ive done) where the primary would heat up significantly and significantly retard the coil's performance. probably someone here has experience that says otherwise.
I hope this gives you a general idea, but if you gave more details to the coil, it would help out a bit to understand what you want to do.
Registered Member #1408
Joined: Fri Mar 21 2008, 03:49PM
Location: Oracle, AZ
Posts: 679
0.125 copper is available as gas tubing for stove repair; however it is quite expensive as compared with .25 which is so common that price breaks occur due to production levels.
I have experimented with just what you are talking about as I ran short of copper tubing after 11 turns on a coil which I need 14 to complete. I finished the rest in solid copper and it appeared to function with no problems. The reason I say this is that at a later date I DID manage to achieve a 14 turn all .25 tubing primary and there was no notable difference no matter what I did as a test of performance. What I believe to be important is the DISTANCE between the coil turns. Therefore if you are reducing the diameter of the conductive materiel (tubing to solid) you should be careful to maintain distance relative to the original turns.
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Primary coil wire diameter - significant?
