RSG problems, help please?

To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: RSG problems, help please?
From: "Dale, Martin" <martin.dale-at-ntu.ac.uk> (by way of Terry Fritz <twf-at-verinet-dot-com>)
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 12:00:08 -0700
Approved: twf-at-verinet-dot-com

Hello all on list.

Can anyone help me find out why my new RSG won't work very well?

It is an 8 gap serial compound with 8 rotating electrodes passing through an
insulated 6 1/2" disk, and 4 stationary electrodes on each side.

All the electrodes are 1/8" Zirconiated Tungsten rods, and the gaps are
currently set at 8 to 10 mil (thou' in UK) which is as close as I can get
them without the risk of collision.

Motor speed max. is 6000 RPM so a max break rate of 800 BPS.

All 8 gaps are connected in series with heavy copper bussing between the
3/8" brass bolts that hold the electrodes.

The problem is that I am getting very poor performance from the coil with
the RSG in place of my TCBOR/RQ serial pipe gap.
With the RQ gap I normally get 50" or more white hot sparks, but the best
the RSG will do is 12" thin wimpish purple ones (very disappointing!) and
the sparks at the gaps are also a blue/purple color and not too bright.

The coil is a conventional 2 coil inverse cone primary 1/4" copper tube and
approx. 5" diam sec.  800t 21gauge. toroid= 2 stacked up to 6" by 25"
f res= 220 KHz  Pri. cap= 16nf poly/foil rolled cap.  Supply= up to 16 KV at
250mA from radar transformers.
Ballast= gapped variac and resistors (approx. 3ohms)

I've done all the obvious checks on tuning etc, but to no avail.
The feeble coil output suggests I've got some huge losses somewhere.

Anyone got any ideas what might be wrong!
It's taken me nearly 4 months to build this thing!

       Thanks   Martin Dale  TCBON   Nottingham UK