Re: ultimate secondary material

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

Original poster: dhmccauley-at-spacecatlighting-dot-com 

You really shouldn't be too concerned about material unless its a truly poor
material.  PVC works absolutely great for tesla coils and is extremely cheap
and very common in diameters up to
10 inches.  Especially since you appear to be a beginner, don't worry about
those more expensive plastics.  Sure, maybe you'll get an extra inch or two
out of a less lossy material, but that inch
or two could end up costing you a considerable more amount of money.  You
could use that money instead to improve another part of the system like
getting a larger transformer!  Even cardboard
sonotubes work great for tesla coiling.  My advice is just to forget about
all this over concern about lossy materials, and just build a few coils
using what you have available.  You will soon realize that exotic low-loss
secondary coilforms, heavy RF grounds, exotic secondary coating materials,
pre-treatments for hydroscopic secondary forms, super fat primary
connections, aren't really necessary
to create a tesla coil that has good results.


 > What's the best material for  TC secondary other than hard vacuum? PE is
 > too soft to work with unless it's solid rod (heavy and probably just as
 > lossy as pvc overall because of the sheer mass involved). What about UHMW
 > PE? Is this stuff hard enough? Acrylic tube comes to mind but don't know
if
 > that's better RF wise given the same mass.
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