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Measuring coil performance
>Original Poster: Terry Fritz <terryf-at-verinet-dot-com>
><snip>
>I feel that the input power is a poor measure of a coil's performance. I
>can dump hundreds of watts into the coil and get anything from no output to
>long streamers depending on all kinds of things. So is there a good
>measurement to use?? I don't know of any. It is hard to even try to get
>the best output from say a 15kV/60mA neon because some can use resonant
>charging at extreme limits while others (like me) don't use this effect (I
>paid real money for my neon :-)). The best I have ever come up with is the
>primary firing energy multiplied by the firing rate. But even that needs
>good equipment to measure. I will be working more on measuring the
>real-time voltage and current of output sparks in the near future which may
>shed some light on how the arcs are dissipating energy. However, the true
>measurement of Tesla coil performance is very complex and I am not
>convinced simple meters can even begin to provide any real data.
I agree that it's unlikely that any two people measuring power input vs
spark output would arrive at the same measurements, due to the
complexities of the power measurement. Wouldn't it be easier to use the
basic power supply parameters, i.e. a 15KV/60mA NST, as the basis for
comparison? For small to medium current-limited power supplies, I think
this makes sense. If one wishes to push it hard and use resonant
charging, then more power to you, make the most of what you have! If two
coilers both use 15KV/60mA NST's and one uses resonant charging and gets
60 inches and the other doesn't and only get 30 inches, then #1 wins.
Wasn't that the point of the original post that started this thread - How
much spark is possible from a given NST?
Gary Lau
Waltham, MA USA