Magnifier questions

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

Original poster: "J. B. Weazle McCreath" <weazle-at-hurontel.on.ca> 


Hello Coilers,

As a winter project I'm going to tackle building a small magnifier type
of Tesla coil.  I have a hard time with math and complex formulas, so I
want some "laymans" advice on a few aspects of magnifier construction.

Here's what I do know:  1) The "extra coil" can have a high inductance
and a larger than normal top load.  2) The secondary is tightly coupled
to the primary, which is in the helical form rather than a flat spiral.
3) The secondary is not resonant, but rather works more like a step up
transformer, mainly due to the high coupling.

Now the questions:  1) Is the primary's resonant frequency the same as
that of the "extra coil's"? {I suspect that it is}  2) Is there a rough
ballpark figure as to the turns ratio between the primary and secondary
of the driver?  3) How much does the secondary effect the frequency of
the "extra coil", as I would think it would lower it to some degree?

I've gleaned most of what I know on magnifiers from Hull's guide to the
CSN and from searching the list's database, but I'm still in the dark.
Any and all advice would be appreciated, but please keep the math to a
minimum.  By the way, I use WinTesla to calculate the ballpark figures
for the "extra coil" and topload, as well as the primary.

73, Weazle, VE3EAR/VE3WZL

Details of my "Hyperbaric Gap" and Tesla coil are at:
http://www.hurontel.on.ca/~weazle