Trashed Tertiary Coil

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

Original poster: "Paul Arrowsmith by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <p_t_arrowsmith-at-hotmail-dot-com>

After tuning at low power I powered up my Magnifier at full power (3.5KVA) 
for the first time with reasonable results, may of needed some minor fine 
tuning and a bigger top capacitance than the 700mm (27inch) one.
  Was feeling pretty good about it all when a couple of arcs curled around 
from the toriod and doubled back onto the tertiary about 1/3 up from the 
base and trashed the tertiary coil by permanently shorting several windings 
in two locations.
  The tertiary is 720 turns of .71mm (SWG #22) enamelled copper wire wound 
on a 160mm (6.25 inches) diameter PVC stormwater pipe with 20mH inductance 
with a 20cm (3/4 inch)diameter corona ring at the base.
  Using a non sync rotary with variable speed control (was yet to experiment 
with series static gaps as well)and two .04uF caps in a equidrive circuit.
  Has anyone had a similar experience with a magnifier or know how to avoid 
the output discharge from killing the tertiary coil?
  I don't know if I can repair the damaged coil yet, I may have to wind a 
new one?, so I don't want a repeat performance of tertiary coil destruction.
  Hope some one can help.
  Paul A

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