Lightning from Fingertips Trick

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: "Chris Fanjoy" <zappyman@xxxxxxxxxxx>

  I've always been fascinated by the human lightning tricks done 
with Tesla coils, and would like to do something on my own for an 
online production video - although on a very small scale, say using 
1/2" sparks to light a bulb, cigarette, etc. I have a fairly large 
VTTC coil and I did some (very careful) experimenting the other 
night, using just a few kV of output. I attempted to make some sort 
of isolating platform for myself to stand on, but couldn't seem to 
make it work. Even when standing on 5" of styrofoam with (thin) 
plexiglass overtop, my fingers would still draw sparks when I brought 
them near the coil. This was with the coil secondary grounded to a 
water pipe. Does it have something to do with the grounding of the 
coil, or is there something I'm missing here?
  Any advice would be appreciated.


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