Tesla coil questions

I find the Web to be a great source of Tesla coil design information, but some questions I haven't found answers. Here goes...

Q1) Why is the primary typically a pancake coil set at the very bottom of the secondary tower? Why not a concentric cylindrical coil?

My best guess that why the coil is at the bottom is to keep it as far away from the top of the secondary as possible to keep the streamers off of it as much as possible. No idea why the pancake coil is used.

Q2) What secondary wire gage is optimal? One site recommends #20 wire because of the lower resistance thus higher Q of the circuit. Others use #24 wire just fine.

Q3) Building the coils will be the cheapest and easiest part for me, therefore, I will do this part first. Before I build the supply, I will use my high voltage supply that gets its juice from a 9v DC 300ma wall wart. The output is from a flyback transformer and is DC. It will charge up a capacitor I made out of aluminum foil and Mylar film and make a deafening crack from a 1" spark. It takes a few seconds for the capacitor to charge. I'm wondering if streamers will be emitted, although only a flash, if the coil is pulsed only every few seconds rather than at a higher rate than the high power supplies.

Thanks for any help, John

Reply to
jriegle
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They *CAN* be made both ways, but the explanation I've always heard, and understand best, is that a pancake coil offers better inductive coupling at the operating frequency, resulting in more efficient energy transfer to the secondary, better performance overall, while maintaining maximum isolation of primary and secondary. (So dodging the arcs is a PART of the reason)

That would be variable, and depend on your *EXACT* design and operational goals. All other things being equal, smaller wire = more turns in smaller space = better energy transfer into secondary = better overall performnce. Trouble is, it seems that when winding a Tesla coil, "all other things" seldom turn out to be either equal or optimal! :)

I'm thinking (not certain, since I don't know any of the rest of the details of yout particular coil setup) that you'll probably cook off your wall wart (and maybe more of your power supply circuit besides) the first time you try to fire the coil.

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Don Bruder -  dakidd@sonic.net
Reply to
Don Bruder

In article , snipped-for-privacy@att.net mentioned...

I thought _all_ TC questions were answered on the Web. Not much left to the imagination, is there? Besides, there are a lot of websites with builder/operators of TCs that you could contact thru email.

Some coils are conical. Dunno why.

Depends on how big the TC is. What did you have in mind? I've played with - literally held my hand to - desktop sized TC toys when I was young. They use much smaller wire than the ten foot monsters we see today.

_That's_ not a Tesla Coil, _This_ is a Tesla Coil!

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Reply to
Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun

Those are nice and all, but when you want impressive results, size really matters. ;-)

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michael

Reply to
Anthony Fremont

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hosts an excellent mailing list. But read the FAQ first, and check out as many of the sites in the webring as you can. Many tutorials and plans available, for free.

All kinds of arguments involving flux distribution, coupling, impedance, and like that, as well as ducking those nasty primary strikes.

"Ten foot monsters"? See below...

But yeah, it seems mainly to do with how much power you plan to shove through the secondary.

No, you won't get streamers, you need to "ring" the thing much more often to get decent streamer growth. A wallwart won't cut it.

Crikey, an impostor! _That's_ not a Tesla Coil, _This_ is a Tesla Coil!

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Mark L. Fergerson

Reply to
Mark Fergerson

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