SS Neon power transformer operation

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

Original poster: "David Speck by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <dave-at-davidspeckmd-dot-org>

Group:

Has anyone had experience with the 220V 50 Hz input, 15 kV, 20 kHz 20 mA 
output solid state neon supplies being offered on eBay for $9.99 each?

I know that they are not suitable for TC power work, but I have a custom 
xenon filled snake tube that currently uses a similar 9 KV SS supply, and 
is operating intermittently, perhaps because of gas cleanup, or a very slow 
leak.  Whatever the cause, the discharge goes fuzzy at times, or fails to 
completely arc across the 48" tube.  If I run a hand along the outside of 
the tube, I can usually get the discharge to operate properly again, at 
least for a minute or two.  I'm betting that a hotter supply would make the 
tube run again, at least for a while.

I can easily rig an autotransformer to get 220 volts for the input.  I 
suspect that these use a switching type driver that rectifies the input 110 
Vac line input, and probably wouldn't care much if it was seeing 50 Hz or 
60 Hz.  However, I thought I'd ask in case some had an experience blowing 
one up on 60 Hz power.

Any experiences would be appreciated.
Thanks, Dave