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Re: [TCML] Tesla Coil not working (probably primary/secondary/top load issue)



Hi Ray,
Another thing to consider is that if you are using no top load, your sparks will be dramatically longer if your wire is raised up very high, like 6 to 12 inches or more above the top of the secondary, I believe this also makes it a better transmitter of RF (but don't quote me on that) so be careful. You still need to tune it for this, so enter sphere diameter of .1 or so into Tesla map and get a rough tune point. Are you taking arc lengths to a grounded wire, because that can make a big difference for an out of tune coil?

Scott bogard.

On 8/14/2010 12:12 PM, Ray Whiteside wrote:
Deepest apologies for that last email, accidentally hit enter when I did not
mean to.


I assume the PFC caps to the primary and the Terry filter to the
secondary?
35mA seems like an odd current rating, typically it's 20, 30, or 60 mA.

Yes, the PFC is before the NST and the filter after it.

I have noticed that it seems to be, this NST is actually one my dad had from
maybe as early as the 70s, and the label definitely said 35 mA.


So you're running your coil, but without the top load?  Kind of like
driving
a car that you plan to put wheels on to someday?  ;-)


Haha yeah, I am going to do some running around today and then I will make
the top load and test it out. I just figured it was necessary for good
performance but not necessary for performance at all, so I could confirm
that most everything was working without it.

Unless you haven't mentioned it, it's not clear that you've made any effort
to tune your primary to the same frequency as your secondary.  The
difference between using and not using a topload is huge and would require
a
significantly different primary configuration.  Sounds like you need to use
a TC design program that calculates the various primary&  secondary
component values.

I did mention it, but I didn't make it very clear. What I said was I tapped
it in 4 different points on the primary coil, which is just a really rough
tuning as in my case I have to strip a quarter inch of wire every time I
want to tune it. Which really  isn't that big of a deal, I am quite willing
to sit there for an hour stripping piece by piece off until I narrow down
where the tap point needs to be, but the problem was I saw little to no
difference in any of these relatively dramatically different tap points. I
was expecting the difference to be whether I get half inch sparks or three
inch sparks, not the difference between sparks and no sparks at all. In any
case I'll throw on the top load and get back to you either way.

I have been using Tesla Map.

Thanks for your reply!


--
Raymond Whiteside
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