Calculating the gauge of wire required for the secondary in a Tesla Coil

I am looking to build a small Tesla Coil at home with limited supplies. I am reasonably confident (well.. as confident as a biologist can be!) with my calculations so far, however I have hit a mental wall while trying to work out what gauge wire I should use for my secondary coil.

I would like to know how to calculate the gauge of wire I need to buy. The information I have is the height of the tube I will wrap it around, the diameter of the tube and the number of turns I want.

For my coil specifically the rough plan is to have wire coiled 13.5cm high around a 3cm diameter tube (the tube itself is taller and I have allowed for space to attach it to the other parts) and I am aiming for around 1200 turns, however if when I find out how to do this calculation the wire is too thin I will use fewer turns.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I can tell this is a simple question, I have over complicated it in my head!

• How did you get to 1200 turns and what output current are you anticipating? Mar 16, 2015 at 10:56

$$\frac{13.5 \text{ cm}}{1200} = 0.1125 \text{ mm}$$