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Re: My First Tesla Coil



Original poster: "Richard Modistach" <hambone-at-dodo-dot-com.au> 

good on ya chris, all the best,
i was in your position 12 months ago,
had an inept idea of a tesla coil but
thats about all, been wanting to build one
for years though, first thing i did was look
at as many websites as possible and see
what others had sucsess with, look at
what i wanted to build and read the
pupman list, and when your sick
of reading the list read it more, and more,
and more, out of the mountains of information
that are posted weekly there will always be
snippets of information on construction techniques
and specs that will be relivant to what you want to do,
you can forget about all those caps you got,
the cornell-dubilier 2000v .15mf and similar caps
are the only ones that can handle coiling, or the expensive
maxwells if your budget can handle it.
what size coil are you intending to build?
easier to start with an nst than mot but each to his own.
1000-1400 turns is what your looking for.
sec. dia  height ratio of about 5\1.
normal transformer primary to sec ratio is out the window
with tesla coils.
mots are good and have some grunt but at 2000v youll need to
series them to get 8-16000v, thats 4-8 mots and unlike nst's
they are unballasted, a lot more work than an nst which is
self current regulated. mots are usually but not exclusivly
used in larger coils 8" and up.
you'll get truckloads of help form people with all sorts of
ideas on how to go about things, read them all carefully
and work out what suits you and your situation the best,
above all, don't be in a hurry.

welcome to the world of coiling.

"tesla rocks"
regards
richard
aus







----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 7:51 AM
Subject: My First Tesla Coil


 > Original poster: "Chris Fanjoy" <zappyman-at-hotmail-dot-com>
 >
 >    I've wanted to build one of these for several years now, but just never
 > got around to it. But finally, I'm now ready to build my first coil!
 > Although I have spent years in electronics (mostly repairing TV's etc),
the
 > principles involved in Tesla coils are still not completely within my
 > grasp. That's why I'm asking for your help.
 >    I received the main ingredient in the mail today - a 10 lb spool of #27
 > AWG magnet wire. Upon seeing the immense size of the spool, I now realize
 > that I have more wire than I'll probably ever need! Not a problem though,
 > since an associate of mine also wishes to build a coil, and I'll probably
 > just share some with him. As for the other materials - high voltage
 > transformers, capacitors, large-diameter copper wire, etc - I have a large
 > stock of these items that I've collected, from the years I've spent
 > repairing consumer electronics.
 >    I've got quite a mouthful of questions, but I'll try to summarize them
 > as briefly as possible:
 >
 > Consideration #1 : Number of coil turns / turns ratio
 >
 >    Most info I've collected from the web, suggests winding about 2-4
 > thousand turns of 20-24 AWG magnet wire, for the secondary of the coil.
The
 > primary should be about 20-25 turns of heavier (<14 AWG) copper wire. Is
it
 > theoretically possible, to use a turns radio of 1:100 (say, primary=10
 > turns and secondary =1000 turns), to multiply the input voltage by 100x?
 > (assuming 100% efficiency, obviously it will be much lower in real life).
 > Secondly, how does one determine the proper number of turns? And finally,
 > can the primary and secondary windings be isolated from each other by
 > putting a larger-diameter piece of PVC pipe between them? (to prevent
arcing)
 >
 > Consideration #2 : High Voltage Transformer
 >
 >    Since I have literally dozens of old MOT's in my parts pile, it goes
 > without saying that this will be what I use. My first question is, are the
 > older (bigger) ones better? Size might be a consideration depending on the
 > enclosure I built this stuff into. And also, is it possible to use two
 > transformers (primaries wired in parallel, secondaries in series) in order
 > to get twice as much voltage to feed to the spark gap/capacitor? Since two
 > MOT's would draw more than 15 amps from the wall, some kind of current
 > limiting would be needed (custom-wound inductor?)
 >
 > Consideration #3 : Tank Capacitor
 >
 >    It seems that everyone uses a tank cap comprised of dozens, or
hundreds,
 > of small HV caps to get the required value and voltage. I have a fair
 > number of mylar caps (mostly from 70's and 80's color TV's) which may do
 > the job, but I'm wondering if microwave oven capacitors would work. I have
 > dozens of em', and most have values of 0.7 - 1.0 uF at up to 2400VAC -
 > each! Only thing is, they have bleeder resistors (typically 10meg-ohms
 > each) and might not withstand high operationg frequencies. And what about
 > high-voltage ceramic capacitors, are these any good?
 >
 >    Maybe that's enough questions for now. It will take some time to
 > assemble all the components, and work out the design. I look forward to
any
 > advice you may have.
 >
 >
 >