[time-nuts] Transformer design.

[Brooke Clarke]

Hi Will:

I got interested in RF coils and spent a couple of years winding coils, 
and measuring them on a Boonton Q meter.  That led to Tesla and I got a 
number of his publications.  It turns out that a Tesla coil is not 
magical, it's just an RF transformer where the primary and secondary are 
resonated.  I took him some time to find a mechanical structure (pipe 
mast insulated by wine bottles with a capacitive top hat).  The high 
school "Tesla Coils" really are just RF transformers because they omit 
the resonance on the secondary.  Tesla did not understand Q and thought 
it was something magic.

Measuring impedance is very different than measuring things with 
connectors, both in terms of backing out the connection parasitics and 
in terms of using a measurement method that minimizes errors (for 
example network analyzers only work when the impedance is within a 
couple orders of magnitude of 50 Ohms).
http://www.prc68.com/I/Z.shtml

Have Fun,

Brooke Clarke
http://www.PRC68.com


Will Matney wrote:
> ...
>
> I encourage any on here to add to it, especially in the design of RF and
> audio impedance transformers. I wanted to do more, but never found the time
> to set down and do it, plus I never really designed that many of them, only
> power transformers. What I wrote was the basics, but didn't get into any
> formulae, etc, which I would have liked to have seen included. Any help
> would be appreciated, not just by me, but our entire electrical and
> electronics community as a whole, especially any students who read it. I
> even found a link on Google, from a Russian university, who had their
> students read it at one time.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Will
>