David B,
I remember seeing your coil on Hull's tape, but I don't remember any details from the tape. Interesting about the need for the close elecrodes. Some coils seem to behave that way. It probably has to do with combinations of capacitor value and ballasting, which affects resonant charging and maximum voltages achieved. Generally speaking a very powerful coil will be able to charge the caps to a higher voltage, and the gaps will fire more easily.
David R,
Your 1/16" gap spacing may simply be too wide for the gaps. I bet that reducing the spacing to 0.025" would solve the problem. *If you can be sure the electrodes will not strike each other*. I wouldn't want you to lose tungsten and create a hazard from heavy flying metal pieces. I use 0.010" electrode spacing on my TT-42 coil for best results. These electrodes can rub each other and no damage occurs. I use copper/steel. I'm not recommending that you use copper/steel. Tungsten is best. I'm just describing my system.
Cheers, John Freau
Original poster: "david baehr" <dfb25@xxxxxxxxxxx>
..years ago, on my 8"dia. coil , I used an 'asrsg' and had to set my electrodes to almost touching also,...this was with NO static gaps in seiries, it just would'nt work with them. The trans was 14400 and the rotary had 8 electrodes, ballasted with a welder. I tried differnt heat settings and adding resistance to the circuit and RPMs too, with no improvement. Yes, R.Hull had seiries gaps with his rotary on Nemisis , and , to this day, still cant figure out why my system would not work, I was using the big TCBOR .02 rolled caps..........But with the rotary set close, that coil would really sing ! Its on one of the TCBOR video tapes, 'TEMPEST' was the coil...