4 Pack MOT ressurection and protection

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

Original poster: "Hydrogen18" <hydrogen18-at-hydrogen18-dot-com> 

http://www.hydrogen18-dot-com/projectlogs/hivolt/4packmot/

I got my 4 pack MOT working again today. I wired it up today. Floating 
cores and all. Success no arc over at all! No corona noise either(except 
from the output leads, which is good indicator it works). But one of the 
cap ballasts died. It was the one on the outer MOTs and was making a 
ticking noise and getting bloated. So I replaced it. I noticed something 
interesting though. Without the cap ballast it runs quiet on idle. But when 
I add it gets really noise, most noise coming from one MOT. Also, the 
output seems different from when I had the cap ballast in last time(before 
TC service arced over the outer MOTs to their cores). I think some HV is 
making it back to the low voltage somehow because the caps are making a 
ticking noise again. This may well not be the case because it runs fine 
without the cap ballast with a large regular output and all. It is wired 
with the center tap on the HV to the electrical ground. Any ideas on the 
mode of failure?


Also, whats the best method to protect this thing? A properly set safety 
gap(how do I do that)? How about some 120 pF50 kilavolt caps across each 
leg to 0 volts to filter out spikes?

Thanks.

---Eric