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Improving my poorly designed coil



Original poster: "Chris the great" <downnessisgoingup-at-hotmail-dot-com> 

Well, I got my first coil running.  It is ill designed, has a horrible 
primary and topload, but has hooked me onto coiling for life.
Of course, it is only running on 2 MOTs, which is very dissapointing (I'll 
get more soon!) running through the simple voltage doubler they use in the 
microwaves, giving me 60 12000 volts pulses every second.  This is giving 
me a max spark of 8 inches :(.  Also, I am getting corona forming from the 
center of my secondary to the strike rail.
So, I need suggestions for improving my piece of junk.

Power source- 2 MOT's in series, fed through voltage doubler, giving 12000 
volts 600mA pulses.  Also keeps gap from power arcing.

Capacitor- around 0.015 to 0.02uF.  I'm not sure, because I don't have a 
capacitance meter.

Primary coil- 8.75 turns of 0.25 inch wire, tapped at 7.75 turns. This is 
my wonderful inverted conical coil, tilted at 30 degrees.  The inner turn 
is 1 inch from the bottom of the secondary (radius 3.25 inch) and the top 
4.5 inches away (6.75 inch radius).  The strike rail is about 7 inches from 
the coil and about 7.75 inches up from the bottom of the secondary.  The 
corona is appearing from about 10 inches up the secondary.

Secondary- 22 inches high, 4.5 inch diameter, 1080 turns of 24 gauge wire.
Several coats of varnish.  inductance is 19.6mH, capacitance is 8.5pF.

Top- half shere, diameter same as secondaries.  This actually works well 
since it isn't a true sphere, and merely the bottom half of a plastic 
peanut butter jar covered in foil.  capacitance= 2.1pF

Frequency is about 334kHz.

Spark gap is two bolts spaced at near max distance, inside a plastic box 
about 5 cubic inches.  This muffles the sound a bit, so you can really hear 
how loud the streamers are.  No problems with this, getting good clean 
firing and good quenching.  Also it is set at the proper distance so I'm 
not firing at too low a voltage.

Anyway, got any suggestions?

_