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Re: Connecting pipes together for primary?



Original poster: Esondrmn@xxxxxxx

Blimpie,

It is done all the time. Both of my primaries have splices in them. With a little practice, you will not even be able to see the joints. I doubt you could measure any increase in resistance or lowering of Q. The key to nice looking splices is the same as plumbing joints - clean well first, flux or use rosin flux solder, and wipe the excess liquid solder off the joint with a damp rag.

Ed Sonderman


Ok, so I am building a new tesla coil. So far I have 15kv and 90mA worth of NST's, a saltwater cap to be rebuilt, and my secondary will be 6.5" diameter by about 29" with 23awg wire (around 1200 or so turns). As for my primary, it is pretty tough to get 1/4" OD copper pipe here in great lengths. To my calculations, I will need around 70 feet or so of the pipe. I can get 10' lengths for around 2 bucks, and a 50 foot roll is like 40 bucks. Could I, essentially, use 10' lengths, with a piece of 1/8" od pipe inside the ends of the 1/4" pipe (to make good electrical and physical connection), and solder them together? It seems to me, that as long as I sand away the solder to be smooth with the pipe, it shouldn't be a problem for primary arcing. The only other thing i see is the resistance going up a bit, and changing the res freq a little bit.

Anyone have any input on this, or any links to where I
can see it done?

Thanks in advance,
Blimpie