Yeah I've figured out that wood was a poor choice. I've upgraded to sch 40 3" pvc for both the spark gap and safety gap. Works a lot better with not near as many safety gap strikes. I've got a 120v 4" 180cfm fan blowing across the spark gap so hopefully that will keep it cool enough and provide sufficient quenching. I also added a 15' chorded remote switch to turning off an on which is pretty fun. Next step is figuring out a wireless solution for a switch. Not sure if the EFs will affect that though. Now that it all works and has some pretty good results. 13-14" arcs to air I will redesign my base. Gonna change all the hardware to nylon bolts and change base material to that cutting board material(forget the name of it). I have a nylon bolt holding my top load on now but the base is out together with wood screws. Primary is rested on 4 pvc supports already. I wanna buy a scope soon so I can really tune it to its maximum potential. And I can use a scope for many more projects. Got a second NST identical to the one I have now that I'll wire up parallel but I need to rebuild my MMC and possibly make a terry filter first. Once I feel this coil is at its maximum potential I will start working on a sstc. Been wanting to get into the arduino based projects for a while but haven't had time. At any rate thanks for y'all's suggestions guys much obliged.
> On May 10, 2015, at 7:51 PM, Antonio Queiroz <acmdequeiroz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> On 10/05/2015 17:24, deano wrote:
>> On Sun, 10 May 2015 03:45:36 +0000
>> Kerry Soileau <kerrys@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>> So the only conclusion I can come to is that somehow
>>> the metal brackets were shorting the circuit out through the wood??.
>> Sounds likely. Wood likes to carbon track. Plywood may have made a
>> carbon track between the plys where you can not see it.
> Wood is a very poor and unreliable insulator. Even without carbon tracks it conducts a lot, specially if humid. Mount the gap in a better insulator, but remember that the gap will get very hot, so plastics may melt. Use heat sinks, a blower, or both to avoid excessive heating, what is also good for the performance of the gap.
>
> Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz
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