strange variac problem

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

Original poster: "Mr Gregory Peters by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <s371034-at-student.uq.edu.au>

I was running my small (15kV/90mA) coil yesterday. I hooked up my 10amp 
variac, which I have tested with my multimeter and shown that it 
smoothly varies the voltage from 1- 270v. However, even with the full 
270v, I needed a very small gap to get reliable firing. I plugged the 
coil straight into the 240v socket and was able to get reliable firing 
with very wide gaps. What's going on? It's almost as if the variac is 
sucking all the power. I could only get 1 foot sparks with the variac 
hooked up but 4 foot sparks without.

Cheers,

Greg Peters
Department of Earth Sciences,
University of Queensland, Australia
Phone: 0402 841 677
http://www.geocities-dot-com/gregjpeters