Capacitor "tap" in Primary?

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

Original poster: "Jolyon Vater Cox by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <jolyon-at-vatercox.freeserve.co.uk>


Capacitor "tap" in primary?

Has anyone had experience of using a capacitor tap instead of a tapped inductor
in the primary tank circuit of a Tesla coil -with the spark gap connected
directly across one or other of the capacitors?

The reason? To allow the charging of a high value capacitor to a relatively low
sparking voltage with a relatively high current in order to reduce the recharge
time between firing of the gap. The second capacitor would be of equal to or
smaller value than the first so that at resonance the RF voltage across the
ends of the primary would be higher that the voltage across the gap.

The system might be compared with a pi-tank or the tuned circuit of a Colpitts
oscillator (without the associated parts).

Would this work or would energy simply be wasted in the spark gap?