Original poster: "Karl L." <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Hi Terry, everyone:
Perhaps I am missing something here, but I do not see how my new
mini-coil could be charging to a firing voltage of 15.6 kV as
suggested. I built this coil expressly to enter in Gary Laus'
competition here: http://www.laushaus.com/tesla/minicoilcontest/
using the same equipment as the other entries. As Gary mentioned in
his earlier post, the only real difference between my coil and the
others is the much larger and longer secondary, and matching higher
inductance primary. The gap is similar to the other entries in
design and spacing. This coil begins to fire smoothly at an input
voltage of only 26 VAC and output scales nicely as the variac is
turned up to 100% The smooth sphere reduces all of the energy
wasting small streamers that typically come off of a rougher
topload. I use a 1/4" rounded acorn nut to direct the streamers and
prevent breakout from the top winding of my secondary. (Yes, I know
spheres do not shield the secondary as well as toroids, but it was
easier and cheaper this way.)
I got the 47 watt coil figure from ScanTesla, which also said I
could only expect 6.4" streamers. Obviously there is something
funny going on here as I measured 18 1/8" streamer hits to a metal
frame around a cork board which was not directly grounded. Could
you (or anyone else) look over my coils specs found here:
http://www.laushaus.com/tesla/minicoilcontest/karllindheimer_cat1.htm.
and see why my ScanTesla calculations are so off?
Here is the ScanTesla output for my coil:
ScanTesla V-7.50 May 31, 2006 Terry Fritz
Goal = 0.058516730 maximum Load Energy
Model Number = 641
Goal Number = 111
Cprimary (nF) = 25.000
Lpr..........