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GREAT results, but a blow neon... Can anyone help me with a protection network? => SamB
Greetings fellow coilers.
It has been such a long time since I last posted here that most of you
might have forgotten me... But I have been keeping up more or less with
the list traffic and, whenever time permits, continued my coiling
activities (despite now living in an appartment, which severely limits
things).
Anyways, I have just recently (3 nights ago) completed another Tesla
Coil. The goal here was to make a "tabletop" coil that would be small,
safe, easily portable and yet yield impressive sparks. Modesty aside, I
think I have quite archieved my goal: With only 225Watts input power
(7.5kV 30mA NST, with no ressonant voltage rise as the tank cap is only
0.0068uF), on a coil that has a secondary with 25cm (10") winding
height and 4.2cm diameter (1.62"), I managed consistent 40cm long white
hot ground strikes!
However, even though I had set my spark gap in parallel to the
transformer and at *just* what the NST would spark over without the
tank circuit, it still burned out with less than 30 seconds run time.
The reason for this is obvious: I was using absolutely no protection...
So I am here now to call uppon the infinite wisdom of the list and try
to get some help designing a good protection network that will make the
neon last. I will of course be incorporating 3 point safety gaps on
both the capacitor and the transformer, and adding a strike rail to the
primary. But I would like some help choozing the right
resistors/capacitors/inductors for the system... Any suggestions on a
line filter would be appreciated too (I can actually run this coil at
full power 2 meters from my computer while its on, but it does cause
interference to the sound, so I`d like it corrected or attenuated as
much as possible).
I will be buying a new transformer this thursday (20th of april)
afternoon... Please reply to this message as soon as possible
(preferably to my e-mail too so I don`t get any delays from the list)
so I can also buy the rest of the protection network on that day. The
transformer I will be getting this time is a 10kV 30mA NST. More specs
can be found on my homepage: http://www.powerlabs-dot-org/coil2.htm
(A note on the homepage though: I have been working on this for a few
months but didn`t want to publish it untill it was done... If you want
to browse around go ahead, but beware that this is not nearly complete.
Any suggestions on it or on any of the things there are more than welcome.).
=====
Sam Barros,
sambarros-at-yahoo-dot-com
ICQ#:15156975
!!! Check my homepage at http://www.powerlabs-dot-org/ !!!
"The Less You Know, The Better You Sleep"...
"Evolution Stops When Stupidity Is No Longer Fatal"
"If At First You Don't Suceed, Increase The Amperage"
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