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On 2/11/15 5:15 AM, Timothy Gilmore wrote:
Thanks Gary. Although I like your thinking about winding your own secondary
coil for pride reasons, I just don't have the tools and setup for that
where I live (for a jig) and time so I will find one online that meets the
requirements for my neon sign transformer. Thanks to you and this great
resource for Tesla coil builders and enthusiasts!
My first two tesla coils, running of a NST, used handwound secondaries.
The first was on a cardboard mailing tube, the second on a piece of
pipe. winding length on both about 18"-2 feet long, 3-4 inches in diameter.
One coil I built, start to finish, in less than a day, and it had a
handwound secondary.
You just sit there for a couple hours with your spool of wire and your
tube, and a scotch tape dispenser so you can tape the wire down
periodically. It really doesn't take that long to put 800-1000 turns
on the tube. You can easily do 1 turn second (try it), and 1000 seconds
is less than 20 minutes.
In fact, my first attempt to do a machine wound secondary, using a
lathe, was quite the adventure.
If I had to do it today, I'd use the variable speed electric drill
approach, and still do the wire feed by hand.
