Success - Was in agony.

["Garry F." <garryfre-at-pacbell-dot-net> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)]

Well, Located two 12/30 nst's. I tested one, and it worked. I put it in the
tesla coil and found by reducing the amount of plates in the caps, I could gain
more output.
 
It's close enough to normal that I know, I am going to get it to work. I put a
safety gap - a rather narrow one (Better safer than sorry) and am not feeling
in such a hurry.
 
I figure I better get some moves or something else to make sure I don't fry
another.
 
One thing I could use help is about the number of plates I need to make a LTR
cap.
 
I won't go into detail about my calculations because I don't really know why I
am not getting the results I expect. Let me just instead describe what I know.
 
The NST is 12/30 I calculate the impedance at 400,000.
 
The cap is a plate stack cap with 12 mm polyethelene sheeting between the
plates. Not soaked in oil yet, I got to get some but disregarding this, the
area of overlap is 26 square inches per plate. What do you think I should have
in plates for a LTR cap. I tried to calculate it but the results I get don't
make sense. The value is .066 for a resonanat cap but I don't know if this is
PF or UF or what. I figure I might want about 80ish for each cap.
 
What do you think I should shoot for and how many plates do you think I need?
 
I am sorry to bug you folks and asking this but I think I need some straight
figures that I can work with and compare and figure out where I went wrong in
my calculations.
 
It's kind of like a lot of things I have tried in my life, I have often had to
be shown the correct answer so I could work back and understand before I could
make any progress.
 
It reminds me of when I was with my grandparents. My grandad staunchly refused
to show me a "Gold Spot" for years despite my steady failure in even finding a
single flake in all the years of panning. Finally one day he broke down and
showed me a gold spot and I was able to look at it and get a sense of what to
look for and ever since, I was able to find my own gold spots. In fact, I found
one of the richest gold spots ever found on the river by anyone. One ole
Misourri panner said he had been all over the states and never ever saw so much
gold per pan as he saw at that place.
 
I guess I need a similar jump start with the coil.
 
Well, gnight and thanks for any answers. I will read and re-read Brent's book
till I understand it. It's just a matter of time. It's kind of hard for me as I
tend to transpose numbers pretty badly. Not as bad as a lot of people but
enough to make me unsure of my calculations no matter how many times I get the
same answer.