Winding the Secondary Coil for the second time.

The new secondary coil form has been sat in my homemade coil winder for long enough. It's time to start winding.

In my last post I gave the new stats for the replacement coil. The only change I have made is to start the windings 4.5cm from the base of the coil rather than 4.0cm. This change is just to allow a little extra room at the base of the coil to accomodate the copper plate that will act as the lower electrical connection. This will mean with the same number of turns (1050) the windings will finish 0.5cm higher, 8.3cm from the top of the coil.
 Before starting the winding I thoroughly cleaned the outside of the coil with meths to remove all traces of grease. I ran a line of masking tape around the coil with the top edge of the tape exactly 4.5cm from the base of the form. This would ensure that the windings would start exactly level with the base of the form. I measured 67.2cm (total height of windings required) from the top edge of the tape and marked this point on the form with a small pen dot. I would coil tightly up to this point then loose coil to the top of the form.
Well almost ready to start. Not quite. This time there's no help available..... and believe me, its better to have an extra pair of hands when winding a coil especially if you are relying on human resources to tension the feed wire and direct the winding wire onto the coil. Manual winding requires both hands, one to feed the wire (left in my case) and the other hand to push the coils together either with a non scratch implement or the back of your finger nail. This means you have no free hands if you need to stop (or start) the winding motor. My winding motor is powered by a variable power supply on the bench the winding jig, not exactly "to hand". I would need some way to switch it on/off remotely.
Bingo. Idea.

I plugged the power supply into one off those remote control mains switches. This one is a cheap as chips version from Maplin similar to the one linked.

Here's the little controller. I can either have it close to hand or even put it on the floor and press the off button with a press of a toe.

The winding wire end was clamped under the head of one of the white plastic bolts that holds the base coil end in place. You need to have a plan in place to clamp the wire end tight when you finish the windings, I decided to clamp it with the same method as the start, using one of the bolts that holds the top coil end in place.

Time to turn.

Well it took about an hour and went pretty well. Stopped just once when I realised I had left the door open. Two kittens and turning a tesla secondary coil are not compatible. Here's a quick vid of the finished coil. I have put on a couple of coats of insulating varnish. Still needs another couple of coats.

I am really happy with the finish. The varnish has a better finish than on my first coil. Next up is a few more coats and then fitting the copper plate electrical connection at the base of the coil.

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