DC
Coil Update DC
Coil Update
DC Coil First Light Photos
I finally got round to finishing off all the odds and ends that needed tidying up on my DC coil, and so I ran out of reasons for not plugging it in and trying it out. You know how it is. You spend ages making something but then you're torn between wanting to give it a go to see what happens, and not wanting to risk it in case it bursts into flames or something. Anyway, I arranged a counterpoise ground constructed from finest premium quality chicken-wire (I went for the welded mesh kind, I thought perhaps it would have less resistance at the joins than the plain twisty flavour), purchased a ladder (I'm too short to unplug the garage-door opener. I really wanted to unplug the garage-door opener) and switched it all on. From a mostly-safe distance, obviously. For an untuned first light I was impressed - it gave snaky streamers maybe 50-60cm long. Well, I thought it was cool anyway.
I'll have a concerted go at tuning it over the next few days and see how it goes. The coil's quite loud - the spark gap firing sounds like someone chainsawing a donkey or something - so I'll have to pick my time to avoid annoying neighbours and suchlike. Maybe it will be a bit quieter once the coil's tuned better.
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. | alas, not such a great photo, but hopefully you get
the idea. For next time I'll see if I can sort myself out
with a) a tripod for taking photos mostly in the dark with b) some coordination so it's less of a struggle trying to press all the buttons on the coil and take photos at the same time c) a hapless bystander who can be poked close enough in to give some idea of scale |
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