Sphere top load

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

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Esondrmn-at-aol-dot-com>

I finally got my 3" coil set up last night with the new 12" diameter stainless
steel sphere that I picked up last week, scratched, for $15.  I normally run
this coil with a 1.75" x 10" toroid on top of the coil, with a 5" high aluminum
cylinder on top of that and a 4" x 13.5" toroid on top of that.  It works well,
with most of the sparks coming off the upper toroid and away from the primary. 
This is necessary since the winding length is only 13" and the coil produces
sparks in the 24" to 26" range. 

My first setup was to remove the 13.5" toroid on top and replace it with the
12" ball.  This and every other combination I tried forced all the discharges
to leave from the lower toroid and go down to the primary & strike rail.  I
could not even run it at full power.  I could get break out on the sphere with
a small nail taped on top, but it did not help much.  I also tried it with just
the sphere, no toroid, and the results were worse.  All the sparks now wanted
to leave from the top windings of the coil and some from the taped on nail. 

What are other coilers experience using a sphere for a top load?  Is this ball
just too large for this small coil?  It probably is not large enough for my
bigger coil.  This is a 6" coil running at about 7 kva with two toroids, 33"
and 40".  Terry, have you tried your very large 20" ball on any of your coils? 

Ed Sonderman