vacuum gap

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Jan Ohlsson by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <jan.ohlsson-at-mbox319.swipnet.se>

I have made a gap from five 1 1/2" by 5" Cu-pipes, gapped at 0.02" between
each pipe. The pipes are mounted on a box wich is evacuated by a radial fan
with a 200 W motor. Air is sucked thru the gaps into the box, and then to
the fan. The fan is fed from a dimmer, and is quite powerful on full blast,
almost like a vacuum cleaner. 

Is this what is generally called a "vacuum gap" on the list?

Would you expect this gap to be sufficient for a coil fed from a NST stack
of 8 kV, 310 mA with a 55 nF primary condensor?

I get 45" streamers at the moment, thick, white and really noisy, but the
length is really limited by my small garage as the arcs hit walls and
cieling. I have to try the coil with greater distance to walls and roof to
see what it can do.

Jan
Stockholm, 
Sweden