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First Light
Tesla List Members,
I fired up my 6.5" coil for the first time this weekend.
Started with tiny 6" sparks to a ground rod. I then tuned, reduced the
number of gaps, lowering the secondary, increased the size of the capacitor
safety gap, and tuned some more. I was able to achieve a consistent 32"
breakout into the air and a couple of weak 35" strikes to the grounded rod.
This was at approximately 960 watts and utilizing a .014mfd capacitor.
I then upped my capacitance to .022mfd and re-tuned. The sparks were white
hot and loud. The distance is a consistent 36" to a grounded target. The
sparks are hot and without a target tend to go upward at a 45 degree angle.
Raising the toroid an additional inch didn't seem to effect the performance
of the sparks but it did change their direction. The sparks now go straight
out (horizontal) from the toroid.
I then varied the configuration of my current limiter for my PT. I started
with a MOT (shorted secondary) and series resistance. I found the best
performance using a MOT measuring 11.7mH in parallel with 14.2 ohms. There
was no HV current change as measured into a resistive load (80ma) but in
operation the color and sound of the sparks did intensify.
I am having a strange problem I can't identify. As I ramp up the input
voltage the RQ style SG starts to fire (very consistent) and then strong
streamers break out. After 9-10 seconds of operation the streamers loose
intensity and the SG starts to fire in intermittent bursts (1-2 seconds then
a 1-2 second pause). I've messed with air flow and more seems to make the
problem worse but reducing the airflow also makes it worse. I did find an
undersized wire in my tank circuit (those gremlins must have switched wires
on me). I'll fix that before my next run and see if that helps. Any other
ideas would be welcome?
Before I shut it down last night I increased my input power to 1800W and
made one last run. A white hot 5' streamer came straight at me, curved up
and hit the garage door opener. WOW!!! Then the safety gaps on my caps and
PT started to fire at which point I immediately shut down. Obviously I need
to move outside, add my other capacitors (total .044mfd), and do more
tuning.
Construction pictures are at:
http://www.hughes-ec-dot-com/~brianb/teslahome.html
I'll try and get some operating pictures up on the WEB next week.
Thanks to everyone who posts on these lists. I've learned a tremendous
amount.
Regards,
Brian Basura