Another 942 run

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

Original poster: "John Richardson" <jprich-at-up-dot-net> 

Hello,

I replaced the cap that blew yesterday, and reset all of my safety 
gaps.  7/32 on the NST and 1/4 on the SRSG.  I think that I will set the 
RSG a little tighter than the NST gap, because if the RSG gap doesn't fire, 
the NST gap will, popping the 20 amp breaker!  (Why?  Time to hook up my 
Corcom?  Or is it because I don't have a dedicated RF ground?)  This is 
with 300uf of PFC caps.  I did a quick alligator clip lash of of John's 
phase controller, and with the 1/20 hp Teletype motor, about 50uf seems the 
best.  The voltage rise is about five volts above line voltage, or 
125.  Not sure if this matters.  75uf doesn't seem to make much more of a 
difference than 50, except I get a lot more of a growl out of the 
motor.  As I thought, the RSG phasing was pretty close before, but there is 
a subtle difference in output.  Zero inductance to about 25% variac travel 
seems to be the sweetest spot, anything more and the safety gaps fire like 
crazy.  Primary is still getting warm, but not hot like it did with the 
last bad cap.  The dog is going ape with this thing running, so I did have 
to keep runs short.  Caps are getting slightly warm.  Re-checked RSG 
spacing, and the 5/32 tungstens are starting to erode.  Is this normal for 
such a short run time?  This is my first foray into SRSGs, so I don't 
know.  This weekend or later this week, I plan on running for an extended 
period of time to check for tank heating and more caps popping.  I have 
found one cap with the "sand size piece" under the first layer, per David 
Weiss.  Will see if that one goes first.  One more thing:  Anyone running 
their coils in a basement have some stray streamers up and hit the house 
wiring?  It's not a good thing, but sometimes hard to avoid in close 
quarters.  All of the incandescent bulbs in the room, maybe six or seven, 
light up when a streamer hit the 12-2 light wiring.  Each bulb had the 
equivalent intensity of about a 25 watt unit.  Pretty neat, albeit rather 
unsafe.  Obvious the toroid is too small, as I can get 46-50 inchers and 
still have multiple streamers coming off of other areas of the toroid.

Thanks to all who are helping me.

John Richardson