Third try at first light

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Matt Skidmore" <fox-at-woozle-dot-org> 

After 2 previous failures i have finally gotten a tesla coil to light on
the third try. 

1st try) was stupid and wrapped the secondary with steel insulated wire
2nd try) was stupid and used too thick gauge magnet wire
3rd try) used the right wire and got 3 inch sparks

The coil is using a 15/30 NST i aquired from a neon shop for $25.
currently i have no protection for it and really need to get some because
$25 is still alot of money to us poor college students. ive seen some
coilers using wire wrapped around some pvc or toilet paper tubes. is
this sufficient for a small coil?

the rest of the coil is a pickle jar salt cap in parallel with the
transformer and a slothes hanger spark gap. the primary is electrical
house wire tapped at 7.5 turns and the secondary is wound 4 inches with 30
AWG on a toilet paper tube. topload is a small ball wrapped in foil. we
also have a small "cone" or ice cicle apparatus we like to put on the top.
with some tuning i am able to get 4-6 inche sparks. affectionatly dubbed
"the crap coil" i hopefully will have some pictures within a month heh.

also, i dont have any way to ground the secondary so it likes to shoot
sparks to the first turn of the primary. i figured since it liked to do
that i would just attach the ground to the primary which works well, but
makes me worry about the NST. Looking over the diagram that Fritz (sp?)
made for nst protection, i estimated $50 for making that circuit. the one
thing that confused me on it however is the MOTs. What does the acronym
stand form? i looked around the net for a definition and at the tesla TLD
which didnt have it listed there. i was going to try shopping around some
local electronic stores and wanted to know what to ask for.

one last question :)
the coil is sitting in the "common area" of my college dorm. the ionized
air it makes doesnt pose any health hazards or anything right? just smells
funny. and will the air set off fire detectors?

thanks. this list has been a great resource for me, even just to read what
people are saying!

-fox