Re: The dowel of death - SAFETY

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Pyrotrons-at-aol-dot-com>

Hi again all.

*snip from Garry*

>  So, what is the big danger you are all
>  talking about? Thanks for any *Info* you can give.

Bottom line, my main massive point: when you ground the end of an arc rod, it 
puts the end at ZERO volts. This shorts any arc that hits it to ground. That 
means there is no potential difference (voltage) from you to the end of the 
arc rod, therefore there's no danger.

This is the way I have made my arc rods for years. I've drawn pig arcs -at- 
25kVA. Tesla coil arcs 6 feet long. Neon arcs, MOT arcs, ignition coil arcs, 
flybacks, everything.

A PVC pipe section with a bolt on one end, the bolt is solidly grounded to 
earth.

I see no safety issues here whatsoever, UNLESS you're dealing with tesla coil 
arcs that are many times longer than the arc rod itself. This situation is 
one in where an arc could bypass the grounded bolt at the end, and hit in the 
middle of the arc rod and find a path to ground THROUGH YOU. 

The danger comes from the ground wire falling off the end of the rod, then 
there's a LOT of voltage at the end, it jumps across the arc rod to your 
hand, then you're gone.

In my humble opinion, I think that high frequency resonances/effects are 
insignificant when the end is grounded. Your whole body offers a lot more 
capacitance (HF coupling) to the coil, than your hand does to the (grounded) 
end of the arc rod. 

Have a good one,

Justin Hays
KC5PNP
G-3 #1150
Email: pyrotrons-at-aol-dot-com
Website: www.hvguy-dot-com