My replication
Here's an image of my replication. My relay got hot and shut down or melted. But I could definitely tell when it hit the sweet spot. The sounds it made would change and amp draw dropped from 1.98 to 1.3 for a few moments. The relay didn't last long enough to tell if I went past the sweet spot or not. It is definitely sitting around 200 ohms, though the stability may be due to my slightly different components. I would highly recommend letting it run for a couple of minutes before adjusting as you can watch the amp draw drop in that time.
Build Details:
Ignition Coil Accel 8140c
(Primary Resist 1.2 Ohms Secondary 8.9 k Ohms; Turn Ratio 100:1)
B&S condenser from Ace Hardware
1uf 600volt poly cap
Relay Radio Shack 275-0005
1watt Decade resistor box
1N4007 Diode
27/100 watt CFL GE (modified per instructional vid)
540/450 12v EverStart lead acid batteries 1 run 1 charge
18ga hookup wire and test leads
Next tests will involve changing the charge battery to a dry cells, the cap to the 4.7uf and using a smaller watt bulb to see if one of those corrects the heating of the relay. Do you guys know which one would most likely cause it?
Here's an image of my replication. My relay got hot and shut down or melted. But I could definitely tell when it hit the sweet spot. The sounds it made would change and amp draw dropped from 1.98 to 1.3 for a few moments. The relay didn't last long enough to tell if I went past the sweet spot or not. It is definitely sitting around 200 ohms, though the stability may be due to my slightly different components. I would highly recommend letting it run for a couple of minutes before adjusting as you can watch the amp draw drop in that time.
Build Details:
Ignition Coil Accel 8140c
(Primary Resist 1.2 Ohms Secondary 8.9 k Ohms; Turn Ratio 100:1)
B&S condenser from Ace Hardware
1uf 600volt poly cap
Relay Radio Shack 275-0005
1watt Decade resistor box
1N4007 Diode
27/100 watt CFL GE (modified per instructional vid)
540/450 12v EverStart lead acid batteries 1 run 1 charge
18ga hookup wire and test leads
Next tests will involve changing the charge battery to a dry cells, the cap to the 4.7uf and using a smaller watt bulb to see if one of those corrects the heating of the relay. Do you guys know which one would most likely cause it?

Peter & I freaked out at the ultra low current draw with such good brightness, but then it started to become intermittent operation and i tracked it down to that clip lead, so when i put a new clip lead it went up to about 700ma and that was also with a older relay. I tried 3 different old relays they were the old tv5 out of an old sylvania tv, and they has about 140 ohm coil. And they worked well also. So i would look at the ohm values of the relays that you are using and see if they fall between 100 to 200 ohm. that seems to be a good match for the particular coil we used. But the 500 ohm relay that Peter picked out worked well also. Good luck
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