First (successful) Light!!!

["Andrew W" <fateagk-at-xxxxxxxx> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-xxxxxxxxxx>)]

Well, I am so excited. I was finally successful. I got 24" to 30" streamers.
Its just recently that I set out to rewire and improve my setup and try and
make it work. I switched from a helix spiral of 12ga wire to a flat spiral of
1/4" refrigeration tubing to stop the primary/secondary flashover. I switched
to an MMC capacitor of 40 of those GE 3000v .1uF caps from Hosfelt. I
drastically improved my wiring from 16ga to 8ga. I also improved my grounding
methods. I finally got some results. 
 
I made it a point to spend time putting together this coil rather than just
throwing it together like my past attempts. Everything is bolted/strapped down
to ensure no need to rewire for transporting. This means less chance of me
messing things up. I have spent almost a months doing this. My time is rather
limited at times. I am a parent and a full time engineering student at USF. My
past few experiences have been plagued with problems like blown capacitors,
primary/secondary flashover, "undetermined" shorts to ground, and just bad
design on my part. 
 
For any one who cares, my specs are:
-15kv/30mA NST
-.01 60,000V MMC
-Richard Quick spark gap, 14 electrodes (only 9 used), 105 cfm box fan quinched
-14 turn primary, 1/4" copper tubing, tapped at 9 1/2 turns
-4" secondary, 24ga, wound 21"
-14" dia. toroid, 3" Al dryer duct, smoothened and covered in Al tape
 
Well, now I am going to try and tune my coil to get maximum performance out of
it. What spark length should I expect if properly tuned? I want to thank
everyone on the list for helping, over the past year I have learned so much
from you all.
 
Thanks,
Andrew