So welding class was good Saturday, started what will probably be an ill-fated "topper" for one of my fire effects. I also plan on making a hammered-steel toroid for a Tesla top-load (4" minor by 13" major diameter toroid). The teacher clearly thought I was insane once he realized what I wanted to do...
Then, after class, a brief nap (I was all worn out) and then working on the Tesla stuff. Mostly mechanical stuff with the box and supports and stuff, though I wound the primary coil out of 1/4" copper pipe, and a strike-rail out of 3/8" copper pipe. The primary was hard work! The copper pipe kept binding in the supports. But I eventually beat it into submission, though I was also totally beat by the end.
This morning, yardwork for a couple hours! I used the leaf blower that I bought for the fire effect (since I haven't hacked it yet) to blow leaves and acorns. Yeah yeah, using a tool for its stated purpose, boring! But it worked really well, and it was very quiet! Neat stuff! Once I got the leaves a little bit airborn, our strong morning winds carried most of 'em off down the street. Ah well.
If anyone wants acorns, we have about ten thousand or so...
This evening, more layout, drilling, tapping, random Tesla stuff, and I wound the primary. This is a thousand turns or so of 30 gauge (very fine) wire, on the new winding jig.
My ad-hoc pulleys couldn't cope with the resistance I was giving them while winding, so I ended up turning the jig by hand... so now my left hand/arm/muscle/tendon system is pretty much fed up with me, between holding stuff in metal class and turning the primary jig all evening.
On the bright side, the primary coil is beautiful! Very nice. And I'm just about ready to wire everything together and begin testing. Next weekend I should see sparks... hopefully the GOOD kind.
Before long I need to spend one of my weekends in doing taxes. I am so avoiding that. Ugh. My business account is a mess and I need to tidy it up first, it will take all day.
Posted by Edwin at March 23, 2008 08:38 PM