Hi Power Discharge "Disruptive"

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

Original poster: "chris rutherford" <chris1-at-hackinghardware-dot-com> 

Hi Guys,

I've been interested in 'Tesla' coils for about  7 years now since I first 
picked up a book called "The fantastic inventions of Nikola Tesla".  I have 
a degree in Electronic + Electrical Engineering so I have some idea of how 
to build a coil.

I am a little concerned about the standard Tesla coil that everyone is 
building as it does not appear to follow the models in the original 
patents.  i.e. people still seem to like the idea of  using  an  LC circuit 
for energizing the primary, where the capacitor is after the spark gap and 
in parallel with the coil primary, thus producing a tank circuit.  Tesla 
never only ever did this when working with AC and it had nothing to do with 
'Disruptive Discharge' which I believe is the main principle of the Tesla 
Coil.  What should happen is a fully charged capacitor should discharge all 
of its energy in to the coil in one burst via a spark gap.  Once discharged 
the spark gap should close stopping any LC oscillations.  The process would 
then be repeated with the capacitor fully charged again.  Is this what you 
guys do?

Also everyone seems to be using rectangular shaped coils, where as Tesla 
used cone shaped coils as shown in the patient below:-

http://www.pbs-dot-org/tesla/res/593138.html

Has anyone done experiments with a cone shaped coil and a pure disruptive 
discharge with no LC oscillations?  I think one of Teslas objectives was to 
completely eliminate all possible LC and focus purely on disruptive 
discharge.  Also Tesla gave up on using  motor driven rotary spark gap 
devices as they were too slow, instead he used a strong magnetic field and 
air blasts to 'quench' the spark as soon as the current discharged from the 
capacitor started to drop.  I can't find a link right now, but he insulated 
an electromagnet from the spark gap using mica.  i.e. the spark discharged 
through a hign magnetic field, greatly reducing its puls duration.

Has anyone tried these designs out yet as his articles say the resultive 
'spark' effects on the primary are more like 'fire' and exhibit different 
colors and shapes to standard HV air breakdown sparks.  i.e. He said they 
were smooth and flowing and more gentle.

I would very much appreciate it if anyone could let me know if they have 
seen anything other than standard 'lightning' sparks.

Hope to hear from someone soon and I am delighted that this forum exists as 
I believe Tesla was a genius and none of us mere mortals have the slightest 
idea of what he was thinking when submitting these designs.

Thanks

Chris Rutherford