SNAFU(s)

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

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <jim-at-jlproduction-dot-com>

Hi all,
Well I went out and tried my dual NST set up today with no success. I
wired them all up, turned the dial and nothing happened. OK Ill just
swap the hot and neutral leads on one NST, plug it in, crank up the
variac and...... 
nothin. Wait!! It makes a faint humming noise, perhaps the gap is too
wide(why I don't know, it was too short for one never mind two NST's).
I narrowed it from .120 to about .050 and while it would jump, it was
pretty tame at best. For the next hour or so I tried every possible
wiring
combinations that me or my old man could think of and it never got any
better than that.

I then decided to try just one NST(and then just the other) and that
seemed to work fine with one exception. It would barely break out even
with the main gap set to "oh my word" big. Made lots of noise and acted
like it did
previously, but seemed like it was always just on the verge of doing its
thing. It would jump to a bulb on a stick thing but very poorly on its
own.
This is an eerily similar situation to what was happening at the end of
my last run and why I built a beefier air blast gap(thought the gap may
have
been heating up). This coil breaks out at like 30 percent on the Variac
dial before it started acting like this. Now it seems that even when put
back like it was, it will not perform as it did previously.

I have two major questions at this point.
1 Why would my two NST's not play together? They both are both matching
9KV/30ma . I had the cases both grounded(and tried with one not
grounded) and every conceivable wiring situation. What am I not seeing
here?

2 What has happened that has crippled my coil. Could I have somehow
shorted or "wounded" my cap? How do I narrow down what it going on here?

Thanks in advance,
Jim
http://www.jlproduction-dot-com/forum