Really big MOT power supplies

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

Original poster: "Chris the great by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <downnessisgoingup-at-hotmail-dot-com>


Hello Everyone!

I hope someone can answer some of my questions about buiding a MOT tesla 
coil power supply.
I haven't got the transformers yet, but I know this won't be a problem (I 
know several people with old microwaves).  I was planning on having 6 of 
them in series.  There would be an optional ballast (made with another 
MOT), and the whole thing would be submerged in oil inside a large 
tupperware container.
This should give me around 12000 VAC at maybe 8000VA (ballast off).
Is there any tips on building something like this?  I also plan to use it 
to power other high voltage projects, such as a jacobs ladder.  Is there a 
high transformer failure rate with this many in series (and the 
corresponding much higher voltage)?  Would I need to use paralled MOTs as a 
ballast instead of one because of the power the system will draw?
I will have a switch to allow the circuit to bypass the ballast for higher 
power, and also to short or unshort the ballast secondaries, to give me a 
couple power levels to play around with.

Thanks in advance!