Problems with discharge

[dru]

Hi- I am not new to the Tesla coil world but it's been a few months since I built one. I recently finished building an induction heater and decided to also build a zvs Tesla coil because the power supplies for the two are pretty much identical. It's working pretty well, but I'm getting a strange phenomenon with the discharge. The coil does not throw off any arcs when it is operating at 2.2kw. When I bring a grounded wire near it though, the coil shoots out very fiery white hot arcs that are reminiscent of an MOTs discharge. The arcs start at around .5in away from breakout, but they extend upwards of 8 inches and they are triangular, with the peak being the midpoint between ground wire and breakout. I've seen arcs like this before when working with flybacks, MOTs and neon sign transformers. This makes me wonder if maybe the current from this coil is too high and it's maybe out of tune/ needs a different capacitance than the induction heater. The arcs boil the metal on my steel breakout rod causing little hot balls of steel and vapor to come off very violently. There are no shorts or connections between the secondary and the primary. The coil will not arc to ungrounded objects. I tried a screwdriver and it had a tiny purple arc, almost nonexistent. I stupidly tried a metal rod that was grounded to me, and received the biggest shock of my life. What is going on?

[davekni]

Enter your coil geometry into JavaTC to see what frequencies (primary and secondary), coupling factor, etc.

[dru]

Enter your coil geometry into JavaTC to see what frequencies (primary and secondary), coupling factor, etc.

Thank you Dave that is a good idea.
-Sean