Re: [TCML] Sudden and unexplained destructive racing spark flashovers

[Yurtle Turtle <yurtle_t@xxxxxxxxx>]

Do you wipe your secondary down before using it? Mine gets quite dusty in the garage, and it even manages to get bird poop on it from wrens looking for a place to nest.

As to the humidity, I guess that's a possibility, but we have 25 kV switchgear at work operating just fine in the humidity with no problem. The gear has space heaters, to keep the temperature above the dew point in the winter. If your at 90 degrees, I don't think you are in danger of being in a condensing environment.

--- On Sat, 6/27/09, David Rieben <drieben@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> From: David Rieben <drieben@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [TCML] Sudden and unexplained destructive racing spark flashovers
> To: "tesla Coil Mailing List" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Saturday, June 27, 2009, 5:36 PM
> Hi all,
> 
> Well, Phillip Slawinski and Cameron Prince (and Cameron's
> son,
> Brandon) made the 3 hour drive from northern Alabama to
> Mem-
> phis yesterday for some sparks and ozone. As is often the
> case
> this time of the year in this part of the country, the
> outside temps
> were absolutely sweltering (upper 90's w/ high humidity)
> but we
> still had a great time. Phillip also over and illustrated
> his newly 
> completed DRSSTC unit and was slinging 32"+ sparks all over
> 
> the floor of my garage from its 3"x ~15" secondary, topped
> with 
> a 4 x 13 spun toroid. We finally got around to firing off
> the Green 
> Monster that evening while Cameron and Phillip both got a 
> lot of still shot and video footage of the show. Once
> again, my 
> 18 kV distribution arrester (aka safety gap) finally gave
> up the
> ghost, so we had to bypass it to get the sparks going
> again. Fi-
> nally, we were powering it up and down for Phillip to get
> more video 
> footage when all of the sudden and without warning, the
> secondary 
> flashed over to the primary with farily destructive results
> before I 
> could kill the power. :^<
> 
> Quetsion: Can anyone offer a plausible explanation for why
> an
> otherwise perfectly tuned and running SG coil, that we
> verified
> was quenching on the second notch consistantly and first
> notch
> with ground stiking power arcs, will all of the sudden
> destructively 
> flash over with secondary/primary racing sparks? I
> witnessed DC's
> Big Bruiser do exactly the same thing at the 2007
> Cheesehead 
> Teslathon and it seems till this day, no one has been able
> to offer
> a plausible explanation for why this happens. I seem to
> recall DC 
> citing something about the high humidity causing it but the
> thing 
> is, no one else's coil there suffered this same fate
> operating in
> the same ambient atmosphereic conditions as the BB,
> (including
> my Green Monster, at the time) . I sure would like to
> figure out
> what's causing these anomylous flashovers so I can take the
> 
> proper future steps to prevent this from re-occuring. ;^/
> Anyone?
> 
> BTW, I believe I can probably salvage my current secondary
> 
> coil for future re-use, as I only ended up losing about the
> bot-
> tom most 10 secondary windings from a 1250 turn total and
> it looks like I have successfully sanded out most of the
> damaged
> poly coating, but I sure would like to figure out how to
> prevent this 
> from re-occuring in the future. ;^*
> 
> David Rieben
> _______________________________________________
> Tesla mailing list
> Tesla@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> http://www.pupman.com/mailman/listinfo/tesla
> 


      
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