Repairs, and Anecdote on Tweaking

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

Original poster: "Gregory Hunter by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <ghunter31014-at-yahoo-dot-com>

List Types,

My recently revived 4" x 24" Tesla coil system had a
problem.  Running at 1080VA input from 2 NSTs at
9kv/120ma, it developed a racing spark near the bottom
of the secondary, and also a tendency to arc over to
the inner primary turn.  Hmmm...

First, I cleaned the secondary with paint thinner to
remove any dust, fingerprints, etc.  Then I gave it
several coats of clear gloss urethane varnish. I don't
believe in glopping lots of stuff on secondaries, but
I was afraid the racing sparks might have compromised
the magnet wire insulation, so I coated it good.

Next, I removed the innermost primary turn.  My 10
turn pancake primary became a 9 turn, and I gained
some extra clearance.

The result?  The racing spark & arc-over problem went
away, and the coil produced very nice streamers in the
36-45 inch range--about what it was doing before the
repair/mod.

Now for the anecdote on tweaking.  Besides the nice
streamers from the toroid, I noticed a few needle-like
streamers sticking straight out from the top secondary
turns. Most disturbing. I decided to lower the toroid
a bit to try to get rid of the unwanted corona
needles. The toroid was elevated above the secondary
by a 4.5" tall plastic party cup.  I looked around the
garage for something shorter, and spied a roll of 2"
wide Teflon tape.  I sat the toroid on the roll of
tape instead of the cup, and lit the coil again.  

Results were most gratifying.  The top turn corona
went away, and streamer length shifted solidly into
the 48 inch range!  From a ~2" change in toroid
height!  It's like a whole different Tesla coil.  I
wonder how much more performance increase I'm missing
out on from other modest, seemingly unimportant little
adjustments that I haven't stumbled across yet.

Regards,

Greg
http://hot-streamer-dot-com/greg


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