Re: New Member

["Albert Hassick" <uncadoc-at-juno-dot-com> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)]

Hi Hans,  Welcome!  I think you are doing very well with your coil.  The
best I could get with a 20ma obt was a 5" spark.  Stack them babies up
and go for the big spark in the sky!  Maybe create your own light show 
(Aurora Borealis)!  Al.

On Fri, 15 Sep 2000 08:06:39 -0600 "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
writes:
> Original poster: "Hans Scholze" <hanscs-at-eagle.ptialaska-dot-net> 
> 
> Hello everyone,
>     A little about myself: I'm 17, lived in Kodiak, AK for most of 
> my life, and
> have an obsession with electronics, computers, R/C, etc...  Also, 
> I've never
> used a list server before so if I do something wrong, let me know.  
> I have read
> through much of the Tesla2 archives and learned enough about coiling 
> to build
> my first TC.  It was pieced together for next to nothing.  The specs 
> are:
> 
> 10,000v 10mA OBIT
> 15 turn 12 AWG primary
> salt water caps of various sizes that I add and remove to help 
> tuning
> 16" x 2" primary w/26 AWG
> top load: 4' brass-plated hollow steel ball from the top of a flag 
> pole.
> all neatly and sturdily mounted with duct tape and hot glue in a 
> cardboard
> apple box :-)
> 
> When it is in good tune, I can get 6" sparks into air.
> I am planning a second coil which I will construct with care and 
> plan to put
> some money into.  I used Wintesla (sorry, it is unregistered - I 
> plan on doing
> that any time now) to help design a medium sized coil:
> 
> 3 or 4 OBITs in parallel (NSTs are difficult to come by because 
> Kodiak is an
> island with 10,000 people, ~4 neon signs, and no sign shop; OBITs, 
> on the other
> hand, are plentiful as nearly everyone heats their home with oil.)
> 15 turn primary of 1/4 Cu tubing supported on HDPE cutting boards
> secondary: ~1000 ft. of 24 awg wire on 4" HDPE drain pipe; aiming 
> for winding
> length of 20-24"
> cap: probably stacked poly in oil, Wintesla recommends 0.008uF
> spark gap: not sure yet, maybe RQ style
> top load: I have welding in school, so I was thinking of taking two 
> stainless
> bunt(?) cake pans (think half a donut mold) and setting up a jig to 
> cut of the
> lips then TIG welding them together into a torrid.  If that doesn't 
> work out, I
> have some aluminum dryer duct.
> 
> I am somewhat confused by how to determine what cap size to use.  In 
> Wintesla,
> the trans/cap match page recommends 0.008uF for a 10000vac 30mA 60Hz
> transformer.  The primary page calculates my primary (15t 1/4" Cu on 
> 1/2"
> centers 6"ID 20"OD 30deg inverse cone) inductance to be 0.0775mH and 
> the
> secondary resonant freq. to be 202kHz and also recommends 0.008uF.
> 
> Does all this make sense? I have not been coiling long enough to 
> have a "gut
> instinct" to tell me whether it will work.  Thanks for any 
> recommendations you
> can provide.
> 
> P.S. The nitro truck I ordered (hobby #3) just arrived so the TC may 
> go on the
> back burner for a week or two :-)
> 
> 
>