Stills from movie
Like many of the earlier DRSSTCs it had trouble with flashovers between primary and secondary.
Several single shots- click to enlarge
It also had extremely high bang energy for its size enabling it to make huge streamers with a single bang. The above picture is several single shots fired off during a long exposure.
Some more pictures of those impressive looking- but pesky- flashovers.
Enlarged section of above picture
Ooya!
Ouch!
When running on the lower pole, the flashovers started at a much lower DC bus voltage, and would not allow any decent-sized output arcs to be generated. Before flashover, the inside of the primary insulator lit up with corona. This was never observed on the upper pole.
I tried to photograph this odd corona effect
All these flashovers burnt the secondary somewhat. Even when the burning wasn't visible, by breathing on the secondary the tracks would appear in the condensation.
Tracks visible in condensation