Re: Tesla Coil Blunders

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Ed Phillips by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <evp-at-pacbell-dot-net>

> Well for one thing, the streamers have capacitance too, so this lowers
> the frequency.  I guess this accounts for 99% of the frequency
> lowering effect, rather than the resistance.  You can easily figure
> this out, by seeing how much more the primary has to be tapped
> *out* (more L) as the streamers get longer.  The shift in frequency
> can be back-calc'd.
> 
> John Freau
	
	I still can't believe that the added resistance has any measurable
effect on the resonant frequency of a secondary which has a high enough
loaded Q to couple any useful power from the primary.  Most certainly
the streamers can be modeled (at least to a first order) as resistance
in series with capacitive reactance.  As for lowering the resonant
frequency of the primary, that may be required for maximum power
transfer when the loading increases, even without streamers.  I should
look up my notes on the subject but have been too lazy.

Ed