Tesla

As things progress new items will be added at the TOP .

Much more has transpired, all I need is to get it all together and take some pictures.

I've gotten some new capacitors, 14 in all here is a shot of one below....

I've got 14 of them in series and come up with about 30 to 35 nf. My 28 ma OBIT will not fire a gap with them so I had to go over to my 60 ma neon. It fires the gap just fine. With any luck the weather will be OK to-morrow and I'll be able to try it with my 4 inch coil.

I've finally gotten some pictures up! More to follow...... Still have to get on with the new capacitor.

This is the lash up I used to wind my first secondary. Yep, it's the motor and shaft from the barbecue rotisserie. It works well in that you have very good control of the winding process and tension. An easy job for one person operation if you can stay awake at about 2 RPM! It does a good job, but is far too slow.

Pictures soon.... of the mark II method used to wind 800 turns on a 6" form in under 30 minutes with equal control of winding and tension. Much more fun.

Some shots of my Variac, salt water caps and the meter shows the value of the wine bottles. 6.79nf. I put 12 beer bottles in a salt water bath and got just slightly more. I suspect I will need both sets when I go up to my 12kv 60 ma NST.

Sorry folks, I've been too wrapped up in things to update the page here. I have been making progress and taken some pictures along the way. In short, the thing does work and I am happy! Details to follow, but to make a long story short I'm to the build a better capacitor stage.

WOW!

Yesterday I made another 3 salt water caps and these ones use slightly different bottles. They check out closer to 1.0 nF and I'm wondering what 6 bottles of water can possibly do; this is too easy. I'm sure I'm going to have to spring for something better. I also got a couple of responses to my introduction to the Tesla mailing list. Brian Howden suggested I hook my caps to my transformer and see what happens at the gap, suggesting a surprise.

Hmmm, tonight I decided put my new neon away and experiment with the oil burner unit. It is set up as a Jacobs ladder and usually runs a nice quiet show for hours. Hooking those 6 bottles across it turned the thing into a monster! Two runs of less than one second and I have gained a ton of respect for what lies ahead.

The next step will have to be permanent safety gaps installed on both transformers and I think I'll just use the small transformer until I get my first coil sorted out. <grin>

I've put together my first 3 salt water caps. They test out at 1.1 nF each. I'm thinking of starting off with 9 of them for a total around .01 mF.

I still can not make up my mind on how long to make the secondary. I'm stuck thinking somewhere between 800 and 1,000. turns of 22 Gauge on the 4" form.

The primary? Well I've decided on 14 turns of the thin wall 1/4" copper tubing spaced about .25 to .30 inches apart. I'm thinking at least a 15 degree dish shape spaced 1 inch clear of the secondary.

News Flash! Today I was lucky enough to meet an old time neon sign master. He let me have one of his spare used neon transformers. Now I can recalculate to a 12Kv @ 60ma transformer.

One of my latest interests involves the building of my first Tesla Coil. I have accumulated some information, ideas and parts and hope to get started "real soon now".

As soon as I can find the new batteries for my camera I'll post some pictures of the materials that have been gathered so far. Here is the list as I look around me....

	1, 120VAC-10KV 28ma furnace ignition transformer. Seems like a heavy duty unit, I ran a Jacobs ladder with it for about 3 hours straight and it didn't even get warm.
	2, 120VAC - 20 amp VARIACs. One of then is in a Davis Dimmer with some sort of a remote controller motor which should be fun to figure out.
	1, 3 foot length of 4" OD Plexiglas tubing.
	1, Large spool of 22 gauge enameled magnet wire.
	1, 50 foot coil of 1/4" soft copper thin wall refrigeration tubing.
	1, 25 foot coil of 3/8" soft copper general purpose tubing.
	6, 750 ml glass wine bottles.
	1, roll heavy duty aluminum foil.
	2, rolls electrical tape.