Re: Safety Considerations

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: BunnyKiller <bunikllr@xxxxxxx>

Over the past several years of coiling I have never intentionally 
placed myself in the path of a streamer... I can at this point in my 
life say I havent been "shocked directly" by any of my coils. I will 
admit tho I have had several disagreeable instances from "secondary" 
forms of Tesla Coil created voltages. The main one I have had 
problems with is touching the control cabinet on both of my coils I 
normally run which will give a rather nasty tingle...   I have tried 
grounding the cabinets directly, but to no availe, I still  recieve 
the "tingles". Other secondary shocks I have recieved are from the 
unattached secondary while in transit back to the shop.  On one 
occasion, the shock from the secondary coil was severe enough to drop 
me to the ground and have a total loss of function of the leg for 
several minutes. If that was enough punch to be had from a detched 
secondary....  I sure dont want to be involved with a direct strike 
from the streamer....

Kinda like professional fire works...  really kewl to watch but I 
sure wouldnt want one going off in my hand....

keep it safe people    keep it a spectator thing...   dont touch the 
pretty blue light...  :)

and think about it ....    air is probably the best 
insulator....   if you are getting 6' streamers, a 4' long rod isnt 
going to insulate you from the streamer....  the streamer will travel 
over the rod and bite you...

just for an instance here..   I rigged up a 6' long glass tube to 
"insulate" the streamer from a ground point, now mind you my small 
coil is only capable of making 4' streamers. The output of the coil 
crossed the 6' length of glass tube and still went to ground....   Im 
going to believe that there is a bit more going on   on the surface 
of glass that allows the streamer to travel the length of it than I 
understand...   at this point I am going to stay with my beliefs that 
very few items exist in this world that can hold off 750KV of 
electricity....   other than a well grounded metal wall  ;)

Scot D



Tesla list wrote:

> Original poster: "Chris Rutherford" <chris1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> Hi,
>
> I'm still new to practical coiling but I have a 1KVA system and I go 
> by the assumptions "Treat it with the same respect as TNT" and "All 
> sparks are lethal".  Fooling around with HV AC streamers is one step 
> closer to the end and I'm sure the more experienced coilers will say 
> the same thing.  As a physical precaution I always have at hand a 
> C02 extinguisher and a nylon tube about 1.5M long.  As an electrical 
> precaution I have RCD, MOV and filters.  I do however operate 
> indoors, which some would say is a bad idea.
>
> Thanks
>
> Chris