TSSP: List Archives

From: Paul
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 07:59:44 +0000
Subject: Re: [TSSP] Problems with high elevation/small radius

Marc wrote:

> the wire is 2.5" long from top turns and curls about 1/4
> turn to the bolt.

Right, so no significant additional inductance. I just did
some sums on that wire length, and the calculated C for 2.5"
of wire at that height above a groundplane is... 0.45pF. Nice
measurement Marc. The total 'end-effect' capacitance for this
coil is around 1.1 pF, so even though the additional wire is
only 20% the length of the coil's circumference, it adds another
50% to the end capacitance, I guess because, unlike the top turn,
it doesn't have the sheilding effect of the coil beneath it.

Terry wrote:

> I noticed too while working on E-Tesla that either having
> a top center connection or just a solenoid without and end
> wire makes a significant difference in f1.  If a coil's diameter
> is large, there is a big air space at the top.  Having a wire
> leading to that space can add a bunch of top capacitance.

Yes, I've just been neglecting these little things. In fact I
recall, during discussions on E-Tesla, saying that you could
surely ignore those bits - well I guess I was wrong on that one!
Marc's little observation has made that clear to me, especially on
small coils, we'll have to take account of any additional wires
extending from the top of the coil.

Perhaps Kurt and Mark can let me know if there are any lead wires
or terminals coming off the top turn?

Marc wrote:

> i think i'll do a full battery of tests on #2 and #3.

No harm in repeating f1,3,5 on #2,3. There is always some
variation each time you measure the coil. Inevitably there will
be quite some scatter in the readings, eg, here are some f1
comparisons from my database of measurements:

     measured   modeled  error
f1    150.7kHz  150.2kHz -0.3%
f1    148.4kHz  146.5kHz -1.2%
f1    455.5kHz  466.3kHz +2.4%
f1    276.9kHz  273.8kHz -1.1%
f1     61.9kHz   63.7kHz +2.9%
f1    237.0kHz  243.0kHz +2.5%
f1    405.1kHz  408.8kHz +0.9%
f1    217.2kHz  208.0kHz -4.2%
f1    161.4kHz  156.4kHz -3.1%
f1    358.8kHz  357.4kHz -0.4%
f1     90.9kHz   91.3kHz +0.5%
f1    224.0kHz  225.5kHz +0.7%
f1    220.0kHz  225.4kHz +2.5%
f1     65.5kHz   66.5kHz +1.6%
f1     97.9kHz   95.3kHz -2.6%
f1     66.7kHz   65.9kHz -1.1%

While the average error is around zero, as you can see there is a
fairly wide distribution of errors around the mean. All sorts of
factors are likely to be involved, temperature, humidity maybe,
position. This kind of scatter suggests that we can only get below
1% by considering an average of results across several coils, and
perhaps by using an average of several readings taken on each coil,
taken on different occasions.

Cheers,
--
Paul Nicholson,
Manchester, UK.
--


Maintainer Paul Nicholson, paul@abelian.demon.co.uk.