Tesla Coil Shunts??(repost)

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

Original poster: "Chris Roberts by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <quezacotl_14000000000000-at-yahoo-dot-com>


Hi Again,

I posted something like this a while ago, but never got an answer. Sorry to 
bug you guys again.("Oh great, It's that guy who can't build a tesla coil 
right. Why dosen't he ever get a clue and stop trying"? =P) We wound our 
primary coil in a bit of an oddball way. We had a bunch of 1/4" coaxial 
cable straps laying around. These things are little plastic arches with a 
1/2" nail in one side. You stick the cable underneath the arch and pound 
the nail into whatever you want to hold the cable to. We found that the 
distance between two of these was the perfect spacing for our windings, so 
we wound the primary around these things and nailed them in. It dosen't arc 
between them, but there are about 110 of these nails in the spacings 
between the windings of the primary. So could these be the culprit of why 
my coil still puts out sub-par sparks? I keep thinking they might be acting 
like shunts in an NST but I'm not sure.  Anyone have any idea? Thanks again.


-Chris

"Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make all 
of them yourself."-unknown