air ionization and also balancing chokes

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

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

Hey all,

I just wanted to share an observation that I have recently made 
that I'm sure is nothing new, but I thought that I would throw it 
out for comments :-) I've noticed after running my "big pig" coil
system in my garage that my x-ray tranny powered Jacob's 
ladder will self start at a somewhat lower setting on the control 
variac. I'm sure the coil is adding extra ions to the air inside the 
garage which is causing a noticably lower breakdown voltage
for the Jacob's ladder at its 7.5" minimum clearance. Yep, that's
right, 7 1/2" is the MINIMUM spacing of my Jacob's ladder rails
so that's easily in excess of 100 kV just to get the thing started.
That's what you can do with a decent-sized x-ray tranny, heh
Duck? ;-)
Anyway, I have two GE 280 volt, 30 amp variacs paralleled to 
control this x-ray tranny beast and they work good but I now
need to build a paralleling choke to keep from shorting the 
variacs. I don't have any problems with this unless I turn the 
variac(s) all the way to one side or the other (minimum or max-
imum voltage output). Then the brushes and/or the pig tails that
connect to the brushes start smoking :-O Anyway, I know dis-
cussions on how to make a homemade paralleling choke has 
been covered on this list before, but at this time, I can't seem
to locate any of them :-( If anyone could point me in the right di-
rection to obtain this info, I would most appreciate it :-)

Sparking in Memphis,
David Rieben