NST near death

["Jon Rosenstiel" <jonr-at-pacbell-dot-net> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)]

Hi all,

Yesterday I took the 120bps SRSG from my 6", 5kVA pig powered coil and tried
it on my 4", 720VA NST powered coil. It worked pretty well right off, I made
several runs adjusting the primary tap and observing the sparks. Pretty soon
I noticed that the spark length was deteriorating and my "NST in an oil
bath" felt pretty warm, (really warm!). I then looked closer at the input
current, my modified 15/30, (now a 15/48), was drawing 18Amps! Afterward
when I pulled the lid off of the NST container, it looked as though the oil
had been boiling!

I then set about fooling with the SRSG timing and finally found a setting,
(advancing the motor  52 degrees from the pig setting), that reduced the
input current to a more normal 6A. (And, I had longer sparks too)!

I am totally amazed that the wrong SRSG firing position could make my NST
draw that much current! It must have been saturating heavily! Certainly
learned something new last night! (Also goes to show that an NST under oil
is a pretty tough puppy).

Amazed in Anaheim,

Jon