Re: Again with the forms?

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <Tesla729-at-cs-dot-com>

In a message dated 1/12/01 9:47:13 PM Pacific Standard Time, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com 
writes:

<< Original poster: "Barton B. Anderson by way of Terry Fritz 
<twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <tesla123-at-pacbell-dot-net>
 
 Hi Shad, 
 
 I agree totally. I'm glad you posted this. Often times we nit-pik and to new
 coilers it can be confusing. PVC and sonotube are both low cost and have been
 used for many years with great success. There have also been a few failures -
 let's not forget that either. But, the success rate far out-weighs the 
failures
 and with the low cost makes both of these formers good to use. 
  >>
> Original poster: "sundog by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>"
> <sundog-at-timeship-dot-net> 
>
>  Hi all, 
>
>  Does the dissapation of the secondary really matter?  I use 
1/4"thickwalled 
> PVC 2" pipe with my small test coils, and have seen no difference between 
it 
> and thin PVC.  I really can't justify the expense of an acrylic tube for a 
> big coil, where the power input is magnitudes greater than a small coil 
> (10kva polepig vs a 15/60NST?)  Sonotube has been proven to work well, so 
> long as it's dry and well-prepared. 

Hi Bart, Shad,
I, too, am in agreement with both of you regarding the type of materials
chosen for the secondary form. I have had great success with both PVC
and cardboard formed secondaries as well as a few failures. Yes, every 
material exihibits some losses in the presence of the Tesla generated
RF, some more than others. Even air itself poses some minute losses!
But the bottom line is that most of the form materials of choice will give
acceptable results, providing that they are reasonably free of moisture.
Usually, failure mode is attributed to other short comings in the circuit 
design than the choice of  sec. coil form material (i.e. improper tuning,
overcoupling, ect.). And as Shad mentioned, the differance in the output
vs the sec form material is usually undetectable. So if you can't tell the 
differance, why pay the differance. Hum, that sounds like a shampoo 
commercial :-)

Keeping 'em Sparkin' in Memphis,
David Rieben