Resonant Frequency? and salt caps

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

Original poster: "Chris Greci by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <christo4style-at-hotmail-dot-com>


Hi all,

I finished getting my first tesla coil to work last week, and my first trial
run of my first high voltage project ever got between 3 and 4 inch arcs, so I
am pleased.  But I just threw together a toroid cause i was so excited to see
some results.  I think with the one I have, the capacitance is much too small. 
I think my resonant frequency is up in the almost a meghert range.  Could I be
getting dramatically better results if i changed this?  Is there a optimal
frequency regarding breaking down air to get those meaty sparks?  I was also
mean to my NST, so I was going to work from the secondary back and re-design
everything, and get some new components.  So my secondary is 3.5"X20" with
~1,000 turns.  Should I be shooting for the 200kHz range?  If anyone has any
useful tips to get me cookin' I would apprechiate it.  

Also, for those of you who use salt caps out there, or have used them (probably
everyone).  How do semi-accurately calculate the capacitance of each cap.  I
tried doing it by the geometry of the setup and e for glass, and  C=eA/D, is
this accurate? or are other loss factors and such a problem so that this
doesn't come out very accurate?  The lab at my college has a capacitor tester,
but also would that even work for a salt water cap, or since it is operating at
high voltages would that not even read right?  Cause the tester is only made
for electrolitic caps, and smaller voltage caps. (I think).

Chris Greci
<mailto:christo4style-at-hotmail-dot-com>christo4style-at-hotmail-dot-com