Re: Toroid Testing

To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: Toroid Testing
From: Richard Hull <hullr-at-whitlock-dot-com>
Date: Mon, 06 Jan 1997 12:43:45 -0800
Subscriber: hullr-at-whitlock-dot-com Mon Jan 6 22:09:43 1997
Tesla List wrote:
> 
> Subscriber: Esondrmn-at-aol-dot-com Sat Jan  4 21:21:46 1997
> Date: Fri, 3 Jan 1997 23:31:43 -0500
> From: Esondrmn-at-aol-dot-com
> To: tesla-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com
> Subject: Toroid Testing
> 
> I think I might have answered one of my questions that I posted yesterday.  I
> was curious about my safety gap firing most of the time with my new small
> coil.
> 
> I built two toroids when I put this system together.  One is 10" x 1.5" and
> the other is 12" x 1.75".  I have been using the 12" version.  Tonight I
> placed a shot glass (1 to 1.5" high) on top of the toroid and placed the 10"
> toroid on top of that.  I noticed the coil now ran with much larger
> discharges (more power) with the longest discharge going up from a previous
> 11" to 14".  (My primary is only 16" away, I see a new strike ring coming.)
>  I figured the strikes would get longer, this thing needs much more toroid.
> 
> I noticed the safety gaps were firing less often - much less.  I speculate
> the added capacitance of the second toroid in proximity of the first changed
> the frequency of the secondary to more closely match that of the primary.
>  Better tune  -  less firing of the safety gaps.  Does this make sense?  Has
> anyone ever used the minimizing of the safety gap firing as a tuning
> technique?
> 
> I tried a different height glass spacer and noticed different results.  I
> think this might be a good method of tuning.  Get several different height
> glass spacers and place them between the toroid mounted on the coil and
> another sitting above it - and maybe another above it.  The arcing between
> the two toroids also makes a nice display.  Anyone tried this?
> 
> I tried this once on my large system running with a 40" toroid and a 33"
> toroid sitting directly on top of it.  It is difficult to learn much outside
> at night, running at 7kva with discharges going all over the place.  It's
> nice to see that you can learn as much or more working with a small coil in
> the basement.  Not rocket science, but I am still learning something.
> 
> Ed Sonderman


Ed,

This is very interesting.  Yes you might have influenced tune a bit with 
your system, but more importantly you made an air capacitor which could 
be charge to a definite DC potential over and above the Rf value.  Very 
interesting.  The DC part would be ruined with any sparks arcing between 
toroids.  I gotta try this without the inter-toroid sparking.  

For those interested, take a large 3000 pf doorknob and  set it inside 
the depression of your toroid with the bottom contact touching the 
toroid.  next place a coathanger wire or pointed tip up into the air and 
connected to the other cap terminal.  Now operate the coil at very low 
power or output.  (4-5" sparks).  Shut the system off.  Watch out****  
The cap is DC charged now and depending on how fast you get to it a 
nasty, hot discharge will take place if it is shorted out.  More proof of 
DC charging from a TC with supposed AC RF blasting through it.

Richard Hull, TCBOR