no light at all

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

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <A123X-at-aol-dot-com>

I finally ran my MOT powered coil. It just wouldn't work, the async rotary 
wouldn't fire. I think the problem there ended up being a bad connection in 
my control box but after I fixed that it still wasn't working(appearently in 
the process of trying to figure out what was going wrong a connection in the 
primary came loose). The next day I set it up again and made sure everything 
was connected right but still nothing at the spark gap except it would fire 
for like a 1/2 a second at around 60v input to the transformers then stop. If 
the rotary spark gap motor wasn't turned on but the electrodes were set so 
they were in alignment it would fire at around 60v input then keep firing up 
to 120v likely because the unmoving gap didn't really quench. The only 
explanation I can think of is that the MMC caps shorted out but not really 
badly so they still work below a certain voltage so that there is a certain 
voltage point in which the voltage is high enough to fire the spark gap but 
low enough not to short the caps. I'm guessing the caps shorted out the day 
before when the connection to the spark gap came loose. If any one has any 
ideas of what the problem is that won't mean ordering an extra 24 capacitors 
please inform me, and if it makes any difference the humming of the variac 
and ballast in the control box becomes rather loud just before the point when 
I think the caps begin to short or the spark gap begins firing.

Mark