Making plans...

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Matthew Smith by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <matt-at-kbc-dot-net.au>

Hi All

I joined the list about a month and a half ago after a 20 year hiatus
from dangerous early-teen HV experimentation;  I'm back with a vengance
but also, thankfully, three years of safety lectures from an EE
course...  I am, at this stage, coil-less, but am developing my plans
through reading the list and also accumulating various "goodies" for the
project.

I'm having to keep my mind open on power supplies - I'm waiting for a
shed to be built (when I can afford it) which may or may not have mains
power.  I could be running of 240-1-50, or it could be 24-DC or even
24-3-don't know.  The DC or 24-3-? supply would be one or more large
automotive alternators, engine driven, producing at least 2kW.

Sights set on triggered gap (555+MOSFET+Automotive Coil) and SWCs
a-la-Geek - I have enough long-neck beer bottles to get me up into the
10s of Farads ;-)

My questions:

1)	If alternator driven, am I better off using DC through an inverter or
removing the rectifier stacks and trying to find suitable 3ph
transformers?  My guess is for the former...

2)	Does anyone know the operating temperature range for automotive
ignition coils (standard - my friendly breaker knows of HEI coils but
has never seen one)?  To prevent anything untoward happening, I am going
to have thermistors on all the bits that could get too hot - when things
start to fry, they break the control circuit which bangs out the main
contactor.  (This is based on thermistor protection for electric
motors.)

Suggestions greatly appreciated...

Cheers

Matthew Smith
Enjoying Springtime in South Australia