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Have a question for you more experienced coilers. BTW the cap is 54 nf. Javatc says 21nf resonant and 54nf ltr Here is the short story. Built a 6 diameter by 25 coil with 22 awg wire. The project just got bigger the longer I worked on it. Like started with one 15/30 neon and bought the caps for it. Then for some reason I got 3 more transformers for a total of 4 and all the caps for a 4 transformer system. Also built the sync spark gap with tungsten rods and the John F phase controller. Also have around 80uf cap on each transformer. Here is a picture of my first coil. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IhEpBzxRupYsymJZYxmthEsPPfRsYuFK/view?usp=s haring So few weeks back was ready to try it out, what a rush, was shaking like a rat. Flipped the main power on, fired the sync motor and lined it up, slowly brought up the variac while watching the gages. I hit about 50 to 60 volts and the fire was flying and I was already happy with its performance, at this point I felt like I was Dr. Emit Brown. Over the next few weekends tried different tweaks with varying results, added the power factor caps which really helped my 120 supply. I did some more reading (my wife don't like me to read) decided I needed a bigger toroid, so built a 30X7 and it is really nice looking. Got the coil out to test out the new toroid, again fired this up with new hat, now I was really impressed because before I could only run the variac at about 70 volts(the amp meter would slam 30 40 50 amps) but at 70 volt or so the amps were around 10 to 15 amps. At the time did not know the cause of this, but with the new toroid I could crank the variac all the way up with 60 inch plus streamer and for whatever reason the amp draw was only bouncing around 15 or so amps. I was in coil heaven. Now the problem started, next week had some friends over to watch, fired it up and quickly heard the spark gap hitting.oh know. I shut the coil down and got the wrench and tightened the collar back up. (what I did not know is the bolt had come loose on the motor shaft) I ran back and fired it back up, turned up the power and nothing happened, and then the rotor caught and made some horrible noises, as in busting tungsten. I checked it out and it was not bad, but now have to realign with the scope. Where did I put the sensor and stuff to do this.. Im completely depressed. So I fixed it all back up but this time I will not put the gap so close, it was like .01 and now its about 5 mm (did not want this to happen again) Lined the phase controller back to a little before top. (where it was before) Long story short ha ha, It would not fire at the lower variac (gap to wide) so I crank it back up and the sparks fly and it don't sound good and the amp draw is back slamming 30 to 50 amps. Painfully rechecked that it is firing around the top of the sine before and after and it is. So the only thing I could figure is the spark gap is the only change. I am going to fire it tonight with the gap back to almost touching. Would the gap cause such a change, I will figure it out one firing at a time. Also do you guys go depressed when your baby is not correct. _______________________________________________ Tesla mailing list Tesla@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://www.pupman.com/mailman/listinfo/tesla