Re: 10 tests and suddenly...RRRAAAATTTTT!!!

To: tesla-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: 10 tests and suddenly...RRRAAAATTTTT!!!
From: Tesla List <tesla-at-stic-dot-net>
Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 00:05:35 -0500
Approved: tesla-at-stic-dot-net
Subject:   Re: 10 tests and suddenly...RRRAAAATTTTT!!!
  Date:    Thu, 15 May 1997 12:27:12 Eastern Daylight Time
  From:   "Mad Coile{" <ts5815-at-devrycols.edu>
    To:    Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>


>Subject:  10 tests and suddenly...RRRAAAATTTTT!!!
>  Date:  Sun, 11 May 1997 03:42:01 +0200
>  From:  tesla <tesla-at-ixx.se>
>    To:  tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
>
>

>I gotta tell you i really didn't think i would ever get this thing to
>work.
>The first 1-7 times we struggled with different configurations with my
>two
>saltwater caps. We tried large capacitance and small and we probably
>tried
>all combinations in wiring the components together. What happened was
>nothing!
>We didn't even get corona in the caps. 
> 
>So the next 2 times i tried to wind new primaries and that did seem to
>help
>somewhat. We got some sparks hitting the secondary from the
>primary.(Lyckily 
>it was only to a bad solder that has now been fixed and insulated)
>And we actually got the thing to burn two times at different places.
>At those two times we got some puny 3" thin blue sparks from the toroid
>to 
>a grounded lifting jack. We got soo happy that something at all happened
>that 
>it took us about 5 seconds to notice the little forest fire at the back
>of 
>the coil. No harm to the coil though, just minor burns to two of the
>primary
>plexi holders.
>
>Oh well, at the last session we actually got a different sound in the
>spark
>gap
>and some nice corona clouds appeared at the bottom of the coil. I think
>i did some sort of happy dance and shouted "-It works!". Well, i
>shouldn't
>have
>done that, the next second a white hot arc shot up from the 4'th or 5'th
>turn
>on the primary to the secondary. I turned off power really fast!
>No harm still done to the coil. Some new fresh polyurethane to the
>bottom
>af the
>secondary and it was set to dry until the next session.
>The next time we didn't get any results at all. I saw the problem wich
>seemed
>to reside in the saltwater caps. Small yellow and blue sparks were
>surrounding
>all my bottles. This sessioen ended rapidly and i said to myself -"What
>i need
>is a good cap!"
>My disappointment was HUGE! (Well, i was sorta happy that we got some
>sort of 
>oscillation in the tank circuit on the previous session)
>
>Now don't think that i haven't done any calculations or do things the
>"Edison"
>way from the beginning, even though it may look so. Every piece of the
>coil
>is calculated and measured as according to all formulas and
>specifications.
>
>So tonight we set up the stuff as usual and plugged my new cap in. On
>the 
>first run we got many many white arcs 8" long to the same grounded
>lifting
>jack.
>I was IMPRESSED, but this was only the beginning.
>We tried to pull the grounding target further away. At about 11" there
>were
>only few sparks flying so we thought for a moment and decided to add
>more
>turns 
>to the primary. The problem was that there were no space to add any
>turns
>outward,
>so we figured that we probably wouldn't get any sparks hitting the
>strike
>rail.
>Said and done the strike rail now became another turn in the primary and
>we
>also
>added another turn between the outer "real" primary turn and the strike
>rail.
>With this new configuration i just tried for fun to see if any sparks
>would 
>emanate without any grounded target. The lifting jack was about 4 feet
>away
>at this time.
>I went to the variac and cranked it up when
>suddenly......KKKKRRRRRAAATTTT.
>Some really fat purple and white arcs jumped around the toroid and some
>shot of to the lifting jack. I was STUNNED! 3-4 footers continously!!
>

Not to bad! I'd like to get 3-4 footers out of my coil. I currently have
one
TC I made (my first one) for about 20$. I use the salt water caps. Do
you
think that the new caps you used made the big difference? If they do
then
maybe I should try something like them rather than my salt water caps.
Like
you stated, I also got little prple bolts all around my salt water caps
but
I easilly suppresed these with about a half inch of 10W-30 oil. My
primary
caps discharge with enough power to ark weld - my spark gap contacts
that
have been used only for about 3 weeks are severly burn't red and brown.
My
secondary is 15" long of 3.5" PVC, and I am getting about 6" of heavy
descharge.  Any suggestions, I'd like to get that out to a couple of
feet
when I gat some more transformers.

Mad Coiler ts5815-at-devrycols.edu