Re: Confessions of an EE

To: tesla-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: Confessions of an EE
From: Tesla List <tesla-at-stic-dot-net>
Date: Sat, 22 Mar 1997 10:52:24 -0600
Approved: tesla-at-stic-dot-net
Subject: 
            Re: Confessions of an EE
       Date: 
            Sat, 22 Mar 1997 08:53:22 -0800
       From: 
            Skip Greiner <sgreiner-at-wwnet-dot-com>
Organization: 
            Greiner, Ltd.
         To: 
            Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
 References: 
            1


Tesla List wrote:
> 
> Subject:
>             Re: Confessions of an EE
>        Date:
>             Wed, 19 Mar 1997 08:57:49 +1200
>        From:
>             "Malcolm Watts" <MALCOLM-at-directorate.wnp.ac.nz>
> Organization:
>             Wellington Polytechnic, NZ
>          To:
>             tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
> 
> Hi Skip,
>           Am I to understand from this that you have now gotten about
> 5 feet from a 720VA neon transformer? If so, congratulations. There
> is hope for us all. I'll be putting your coil on the chart soon.
> 
> Regards,
> Malcolm
> 

Hi Malcolm and All

Whoa! Stop1 Sorry for the ambiguous wording. The 720w pumps out 48"
discharges. When I went to a 15kv-at-120ma (1800va) tranny with 120v input,
the discharges went over 60" without tuning. I'm still working on the
tune, spark gap, toroid height and size, and k to determine more
precisely the max discharge length at 1800va. Will get back with a more
definitive report as soon as I get time to get the work done.

Skip




> >        From:
> >             Skip Greiner <sgreiner-at-wwnet-dot-com>
> > Organization:
> >             Greiner, Ltd.
> >          To:
> >             tesla list <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
> >
> >
> > Hi all but especially new coilers
> >
> > I should know better but you might gain from my experience. I have been
> > working at relatively low power on the order of 700 to 2000 watts. I
> > "play" at the 700 watt level and then try to move up. At 700 watts we
> > use less than 10A from the mains and at 2kw something on the order of
> > 20A assuming 120v mains.
> >
> > I put together what appeared to be a pretty impressive 700w TC,
> > something like 48"(+) discharges and thought the design was worth while
> > to push to 2kw. Lo and behold I could never get over 54" discharges no
> > matter what. Being very frustrated I naturally started checking
> > everything in sight with virtually no solution. By the way I monitor
> > mains current but not mains voltage. With nothing left to check I
> > finally got to the mains and guess what? My input voltage to the neon
> > driver was only around 100v using a rectifier type meter for
> > measurement. This probably means that the voltage getting to the
> > capacitor was even less during operation. That's close to 20%
> > undervoltage......major problem.
> >
> > Starting from my power distribution panel I rewired everything up to the
> > neon input. Now the same meter reads 120v at the panel AND at the neon.
> > Better yet on the first firing the discharges went well over 60" and I
> > am now doing a major retuning of the whole system.
> >
> > Moral: Make sure that you are truly delivering full mains voltage to
> > your input transformer under load. You may be losing a major part of
> > your discharge length in the feed lines, variac, etc.  to your system.
> >
> > Skip
> >
> >