Possible method of operation? (I)
There was one that had lots of little carbon fingers on opposite sides of an air gap, these fingers were of varying length. The spark was supposed to sort of crackle across the gaps at slightly different times hence giving the multi spark affect. It worked until the carbon fingers eroded, then you got nowt.
Possible method of operation? (II)
The way in which these things work is kind of a trade
secret, but we had a MASSIVE discussion on the list a year ago about the
Multispark thing.
We arrived at the conclusion it was in fact.... a broken HT lead!
Yes! It is a lead with a small gap in it. It cannot be anything active as it has
no power feed, and personally I don't think it is a capacitor or anything as
70kV would make short work of one of those.
We think the 'gap' causes 'LC' resonance of some sort, leading to the 'multi'
sparking you see on the demo stand.
Believe me, you want one BIG spark not a load of small ones.