I have only had trouble up near 30kv. As long as I stay under 25kv the operation is smooth and fine. It appears that might be the limit for simple Spark plug adapted systems. When I was visiting Joe Zambelli, he had a bit of a problem with his spark plug, too. It never failed completely while I was there, but the arcs would blow a fuse or two in his HV supply.
I Think serious efforts at this are going to have to have serious insulators at the electrical input to the inner grid.
Richard Hull
Created on Monday, January 15, 2001 9:38 AM EDT by Richard Hull