Another trial: Strange results again...

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

Original poster: "Simon Yorkston by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <Quantum-X-at-Qserve.8m-dot-com>


Hi List.
I fired up the coil last night [finally managed to grab some dry-land and
some free time..].
As per Terry's advice, my coil specs are pretty much the same as before,
but with the following changes:
Filter: now has 20 .0047ufd caps [not .047 :P] - 10 per leg, with 2x3k 11W
resistors per leg.
MMC now consists of 3x15of .047 caps.

It seems to run ok, but I'm still getting pretty poor results. 
The maximum 'fat' sparks that I could get were about 25 cm from the toroid
to an earthed rod, and this wasn't consistant. It seemed that the coil was
'inconsistant' with its tuning.. I could tap to one place, and then change
back to it later, and get different results from the first time. It think
this may have something to do with the way my toroid is attatched and
connected - the sparks were preferring to come off the wire connecting than
the toroid, unless 'forced' [eg, grounded rod put to opposite side] - Does
anyone have any simple, yet effective ways of attatching the toroid?

I did get a quick treat though - For a short time [5-10 seconds] I
witnessed the sparks 'sliding', and seeing the repeat images of the same
spark - very nice.

Around the fat sparks that I teased, there was a thick purple glow- about
15cm tall.. I'm wondering if this is just a really quick breakrate, or
something..


Well, I was really hoping someone could tell me what's wrong with my coil
:)
I have rebuilt everypart of the coil, at least one over, and everything
seems to checkout now... The only idea I have is the sparkgap- Could it be
breakingout to fast; but if I add more points, will it just make the
safeties fire?

Thanks,
Safe coiling..
Simon