Suicidal Secondary--Solved!

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Original poster: "Marry Krutsch by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <u236-at-earthlink-dot-net>


	Hi everybody!

	Thanks to all who helped me out.  In a last ditch effort (short of a
new coil) to get rid of racing sparks, I put a thick coat of epoxy on
the secondary.  I just tested it, and it works great!  I cut a hole in a
plastic trash can lid and slid it over my secondary so that it covered
the primary.  This eliminated primary-secondary arcing.  I was able to
lower the secondary an inch from its previous position.  My old coupling
was around 0.12, and now it's 0.21!  With two copier xfmr's I had a few
racing sparks, but with another epoxy coat, these should go away.  I had
several measurable strikes to 5 feet, and streamers that were longer.  I
hooked up my un ballasted MOT supply, blowing the rest of my diodes (but
who cares ?!  :-)), and the coil put out two or three 5 footers at once,
with a few single streamers to at least 6.5 feet!  I love it when these
things work the way they're supposed to :-).  I can't wait to set this
thing set up where I have more space.  Then I can open the gap some
more.

	Thanks again,
		Winston K.