[TCML] LTR/STR and spark length

["Neal Namowicz" <neal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

First, I'd like to thank Gary Lau on the previous advice you gave me re: resonance and capacitance. If you'll recall, I started out with a 2nf cap bank, bumped it up to 4, and then after I was told that was significantly str I managed to bump it up to 25 nf. (I had more caps laying around than I realized). 
Here's my question- how much is one's potential spark length limited by the height of the secondary? Here's basically what I have; 4" x 18" secondary, flat spiral primary using .25" cu tube, and I changed to a 9kv, 180ma power supply. I've tried various toploads, and I've found that I'm still partial to the sphere shape. I tried a dryer duct toroid that ended up being just slightly wider than the secondary is high, and had good arcs breaking out all over at 18"+ . Then I went back to a 10" sphere with a 12" brass rod stuck into a hole in the sphere. I'm getting easy 18 to 20" streamers off the top. Given that I'd like to stick to my quenched single static gap (for now, at least), can I expect to get any better, or is it time to "upgrade" to a bigger secondary? A long time ago I started a bigger coil, but didn't get any farther than winding the secondary (8"x48", wound with 18 ga). Thanks everyone, for your help and input.

Neal.
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