Hi Dave,
Yep, I know of this technique. Here's a question for you:
Did you guys run the coil at the same power removing all the
"in-between" nails?
Did you hit the last nail in that mode?
I know your post is regarding a "visual spark tuning method", but
I'm just curious for reasons regarding some past threads years ago.
Take care,
Bart
Dave Leddon wrote:
Here's a scheme that I use to tune a coil to it's maximum spark
length which also yields an accurate measure the length
achieved. I tape a nylon weed-wacker line to the toroid and attach
the opposite end to a vertical support about 20 feet from the
coil. Suspended from the line are about 20 movable wooden dowels
each pierced by small nails at the lower end with the nail furthest
from the coil being grounded. An arc from a breakout point on the
toroid will jump from nail to nail to reach ground and so you just
keep increasing the dowel spacing an readjusting the coil until the
arc cannot reliable span the distance.
Once the coil is tuned to achieve a maximum spark length, all one
has to do is measure the span and subtract the total length of the nails.
Here's a picture this setup taken at Greg Leyh's Nevada Lightning
Laboratory last summer:
http://www.teslacoiling.com/firingthegap.jpg
Dave
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