Re: 4th-of-july showings

["Chip Atkinson" <chip-at-pupman-dot-com> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)]

I'm not sure about PIR detectors, but I can tell you that TC's drive
at least the "common" outdoor lighting motion detectors crazy.  When I was
running the coil in front of motion detectors, the lights turned on and
off, on and off, as if a child were playing with them.  In fact, the
motion detectors across the street went nuts.  It's kind of funny when
it's just attached to lights, but using it as a safety device would be
Russian Roulette IMHO.

Chip

On Mon, 3 Jul 2000, Stan wrote:

> There seems to be a commonality between tesla coiling and things that
> explode or catch fire.   I'd guess most coilers took a magnifying glass
> to combustible materials and perhaps a few ants as kids. ;)  Anyway....
> 
> Terry, what about using one of those "PIR" motion detectors and rigging
> a simple circuit to cut TC power when it detects motion.  Obviously
> you'd want to tinker with the range and angle so that a passing car or a
> person outside the danger zone wouldn't trigger it.  You could also use
> the IR beam/reflector jobs that lots of stores have to notify them when
> someone comes in the door.  Just a thought....seems fairly simple to
> implement, though.
> 
> -Stan
> 
> Terry Fritz wrote:
> > 
> > Hi Sundog,
> > 
> >         I have been thinking about setting my big coil up in the front
> yard.  With
> > the recent forest fires and dry weather here and the "Police in full force"
> > out to enforce the "absolutely no fireworks" laws in the city, Tesla coils
> > seem rather tame...  Last year, me and the brothers had an "accident" when
> > all the fireworks all caught on fire at once!  We had gone 365 days since
> > we had an accident like that before! :-))  So..., this seems like a good
> > year to "lay low"...
> > 
> >         My concern is crowd control.  Realizing that last year, this
> "safe and
> > sane" town, had so many "illegal" fireworks going off you could not see
> > across the streets through all the smoke...  "Some people" delighted in
> > firing pop bottle rockets at passing police cars (to which, about 40 cops
> > responded :-))...  And this college town sells more beer this weekend than
> > any other time...  (Ok, so we take "our" 4th seriously here :-))  It is
> > just a darn difficult time to maintain a safe working environment for a
> > coil in the front yard...  But I will try to pull it off...
> > 
> >         I will borrow a lab coat from work so I look official and have
all my
> > Tesla coil "licenses" ready (a miracle of high resolution ink jet printing
> > :-)).  That way I should be "official" enough to command the situation and
> > "pull the plug" if needed.  It's a little hard since you need good lighting
> > around the coil area which detracts from the arcs but you do have to be
> > absolutely careful!
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > 
> >         Terry
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > At 12:24 PM 6/29/00 -0400, you wrote:
> > >
> > >Hi All!!
> > >
> > >Just out of curiosity, how many of you all intend to show off your
coils on
> > >the 4th to your friends, families, etc. ?  How many intend to make their
> > >coil the "main event?" (especially for us "too dry for fireworks"
places :(
> > >
> > >
>                       Caio!
> > >
>                 Sundog
> > >
>