RE: The Tabletop Tesla Coil Showdown - OFFICIAL RULES and WEBSITE

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

Original poster: "Malcolm Watts by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <m.j.watts-at-massey.ac.nz>

Hello Dan,

On 4 Oct 2002, at 8:12, Tesla list wrote:

> Original poster: "Mccauley, Daniel H by way of Terry Fritz
<twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <daniel.h.mccauley-at-lmco-dot-com>
> 
> 
> The old problem remains: I, for one, am unable to obtain a 4kV/20mA 
> transformer here in NZ, much less one from a particular manufacturer.
> 
> >>>>>Sounds like an excuse to me.   Someone with enough ingenuity to
> actually build really cool
> tesla coils should be ingenius enough to obtain a simple 4kV/20mA
> transformer.

I don't need to make excuses so you can put that thought away. I 
would certainly  like to compete, or can't you tell?

> For one, i found three franceformer distributors in New Zealand by simply
> doing a search on google.

Great - please post the urls and/or company names and I will contact 
them. France's website wasn't terribly helpful - I was given a list 
of distributors in the US only.

> Secondly, you could always ask someone (such as one of the many kind users
> of this group) to simply buy one
> and ship it to you.

At who's cost? I don't expect you've noticed the NZ/US exchange rate 
lately. I have to earn something like $2.50 for every dollar you earn.
So cost is a factor and I can't afford to front up with more dollars 
than you guys seem to have to in order to compete. Nor should I have 
to.
 
>      I previously suggested that the only real competition in Tesla 
> Coiling stakes was to beat John Freau's 1.7*SQRT(VA) for a single 
> resonator machine. That of course includes magnifiers. It's an open 
> competition, both to all comers, and for as long as it takes. I think 
> we'd learn much more doing that than trying to beat each other with a 
> particular transformer as a starting point. For some reason, that 
> suggestion never made it to the list.
> 
> >>>>>The problem here is that you'll get a whole group of people building
> coils ranging from a few watts up to
> many many kilowatts.  You wouldn't get the same fun as with competing with
> other people using the same power source as yourself.  It would be much more
> beneficial to see what all kinds of people could do with that 4kV/20mA (no
> restrictions) than with a bunch of people trying to get their coil
> outperform some boring mathematical formula.

I concur that it would be fun to compete on an equal footing. It is 
also true however that the "boring" mathematical formula would take a 
lot of beating. Have you compared your results with its predictions?
 
> As a recent convert (if you can't beat them, join them) it would be
> interesting to see what kinds of schemes people come up with to get the
> longest arc using only the 4kV/20mA transformer.

Agreed. I already know the approach I'd take (and will take if I am 
able to).

Regards,
Malcolm