Hi Ben,Hard to help with that. The coil is just so small. Small coils like that are some of the hardest to build. The problem is to tune in correctly. I'm looking at it and the secondary is a bit over 2 MHz. The primary is however hard for me to imagine with a dual layer helical?. Javatc can't do dual layers (I'm not sure I understand the primary configuration). But, if it's 14 turns at 2" height (boy a picture would help here), Javatc will want about double your capacitance to get it in "near" tuning range. The problem here is that the primary coil adds a lot of external capacitance to this little coil and the position of the primary (and actual geometry) along the secondary can change it's tune point considerably.
I think your basically getting a force feed situation with the small sparks at this point. You should get at least 3 inches, but don't expect 9" numbers. Those numbers are based on coils of the normal 3" and larger coil sizes. I don't think anyones performed a study on such a small coil before as far as spark length versus power.
Take care, Bart Ben Sneath wrote:
hello all, can anyone help me with my coil problems, i built a small 1" coil and it is only making thin wispy 3/4inch sparks, yet I'm putting about 30W into the thing. i don't know if the PVC pipe i used in the secondary is absorbing all the power (its 1" dia., with about 2.5 mm thick walls, bit too much plastic) or fromovercoupling. here are the specs: Secondary: 1" x 3", about 500 turns, 38ish gauge wire Primary: helical, 14 turns (2 layers) 20 Amp electrical wire, 2" dia.x1" highTank Cap: .42nF MMC Topload: 12mm x 40mm foil coated wooden toroid Power: 10kv induction coil, running at 230HzGap: 4 round head bolts, spaced so they just fire Runs at about 2.5MHz any help would be a great help, thanks _______________________________________________ Tesla mailing list Tesla@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.pupman.com/mailman/listinfo/tesla
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