RE: Poor Performance Question

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

Original poster: "McCauley, Daniel H" <daniel.h.mccauley-at-lmco-dot-com> 



Steel is very bad indeed.
I made the mistake of using a single steel bolt on my MMC capacitor and
during operation, the steel bolt got
hot enough to do some serious damage to the PVC enclosure my MMC was
housed in.  Can't imagine how hot
a primary coil made out of steel would get.

Dan


 >Your choice of steel over copper is not good.  RF currents
 >like copper not steel or alum.
 >
 >What is the dia. of your sec coil?   And, most critical, how
 >high is the
 >bottom turn of the sec coil elevated above the horizontal
 >plane of the primary coil?
 >
 >Dr. Resonance
 >
 > >
 > > Over the weekend I took my spark gap TC outside for the
 >first time. I was  > disappointed in the performance and am
 >hoping someone on the list could  > offer some suggestions as
 >to the cause of the less than previous output of  > my coil.
 >Always before it produced multiple three to four foot
 >streamers  > but when I set it up outside it produce 12 to 18"
 >streamers and would have  > racing sparks down the secondary.
 >I tried playing with the tuning but it  > did not help. I am
 >of the opinion that the poor output and racing was due  > to a
 >poor ground and windy conditions. I had driven a .5"
 >galvanized pipe  > into the ground about a foot deep and
 >connected to it via a set of  > automotive jumper cables.  All
 >previous runs of the coil have been inside  > and connected to
 >a copper ground rod six feet into the earth and connected  >
 >with six feet of no. 4 copper. Any theories, suggestions, etc.
 >are appreciated.  >  > Emmett  >  >  >  >
 >
 >
 >