safety gaps at high power

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

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <Tesla729-at-cs-dot-com>

Hi all,
I've got a quick question for y'all. I have a safety gap that I installed
on my 10 kVA pole pig. The problem that I have with this SG is that
when it is set to where it does occasionally fire, it immediately power 
arcs, when it fires, due to the heavy current, and will only extenguish 
when I turn the power control variac way down. If I set it where it dosen't 
fire at all, then I am defeating the purpose of having it in the first place.
I was wondering if any of you other "pig" coilers had noticed this pro-
blem. I remeber reading an article by Richard Hull in one of the TCBA
volumes, and he stated that he didn't even use safety gaps at power 
levels over 5 kVA due to this problem. BTW, my pig is externally bal-
lasted with an arc welder. Comments anyone?

David Rieben