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Re: Beginner's Tesla coil -First Light!



On Sun, 15 Nov 1998 19:51:17 -0700, you wrote:

>Original Poster: Terry Fritz <terryf-at-verinet-dot-com>
>
>Hi All,
>	
>	10 inch arcs out of a GM HEI ignition coil!!
>
>	I finally submerged the GM HEI coil in oil and let her go.  It easily
>arced the 10" to a grounded salad bowl I was using to contain the mineral
>oil incase something leaked.  It probably could have gone further.  This
>was in single shot mode and the voltage should have been around 120kV.  The
>arcs were strong and blew a hole through a bit of PVC.  I added more oil to
>stop the "leak".  
>
>	The high voltage supply was loosing it's mind when the coil fired, so I
>used a bridge rectifier and hooked it to my variac-neon charging circuit
>for my regular coil.  Thus I could fire it at a much higher rate than 1 BPS
>(I was getting carried away at this point).  I knew much more power was
>needed :-)).  The neon ran it right up there to ~10BPS.  Then the coil
>blew! :-(  The primary looks like a short now.  I'll clean it in detergent
>and do an autopsy tomorrow.  

Did you de-can the coil before oiling? If not, it could be that the
plastic parts have broken down - I managed to get a pinhole puncture
through the top plastic cover of a non-immersed coil, but then I was
firing about 2KV from a 120uf cap into the primary......!