Re: [TCML] Trying another coil after 42 years

[dave pierson <dave_p@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > When I was a youngster I built a small Tesla transformer
> > with an old Model-T spark coil and a capacitor made of a
>>  piece of glass with tin-foil electrodes.
     Hopefully several pieces?  8)>>

> > The primary was two inches or so in diameter and the
> > secondary was one inch or so at about six inches in height.

> > It performed well.
     I still have the remnants of one my brother built,
     mine being lost.  (I ended up with another, story omitted
     for brevity.  See below....

> Yeah, I made something similar when I was a teenager.  Powered it with
> a car ignition coil and a dimmer switch.  Glass plate capacitor,
> machine bolt spark gap, 2-3" streamers and lots of purple corona.  I
> was mesmerized.  Had my parents known what I was up to, they probably
> would have stopped me.  I've been tinkering with the hobby--on &
> off--roughly 35 years now.
     Dad supplied our Model T Coils: he had a model T when he was...
     Used it as learning exercise for us in how to solder,
     patience in winding, etc.  Not clear we ever got to resonance,
     it did get me hunting up Tesla in the encyclopedia.  One of the
     mags published the plans, disrecall which.  Ours was for a
     'bipolar/Oudin' style, secondary 12ish" long, 6-8 panes of glass,
     6 by 8iish inches for the cap.  I THINK I recall dad tying to get
     a younger me to comprehend cap formulas as we tried to work around
     what we had.  Minimalist static gaps.

     We briefly contemplated some emipowerish 'tubes', but he worked out
     they were mercury vapor fill (Low power thyratrons) and all we had
     for plans was for vacuum vacuum tubes, so....

     grins
      dwp
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