Re: ^^(my) First Light ^^

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

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <FutureT-at-aol-dot-com>

Matt,

I'm glad to hear the coil worked on it's first test firing.  THe coil will
probably benefit eventually from the use of a larger toroid, but the
toroid you have should still be able to give 45" sparks or more.
The breeze was probably killing the spark length.

An MMC will give about 15% longer sparks than the F.R. cap
due to the lossy-ness of the F.R. cap. 

>  1. Any ideas on what happened that allowed my wildly firing safety gap to 
>  stop firing by cranking up the voltage more?

When the main gap got hot, it was able to fire at a lower voltage,
and this would tend to make it fire before the safety gap.  This could
be part of the explanation maybe.

>  
>  2. I know I've read this somewhere, but when the S. gap fires a lot, is it 
>  tuning or over coupling?

tuning.

>  
>  3. I'm assuming from the many streamers that my topload is too small?

the breeze may have been having a bad effect too.
>  
>  4. 22 gage wiring from the cap to gap to primary and it worked? what tha?

This shows that it's not as important to use thick wires as some
folks think.  But you're surely getting some losses there.

John Freau


>  Matt.