Having blown an oscilloscope of mine looking at Tesla Coil waveforms, I
(learned from sad experience) would agree with Ed here that caution is in
order.
I felt that having my scope many feet away and using a small wire as the
pickup was "careful enough". And I was wrong.
You could perhaps limit the danger with an input resistor network,
however,
you'd need resistors that will hold up under *extreme* voltages. (I have
no idea where you'd find them. Other people on this list do know,
however.)
Something like this: (I am so bad at drawing little schematics with
ASCII art...) would help cut the input voltage by 10x. Changing R2 to 100K
would cut it on the order of 100x.
Probe "hot"
<----+
|
/
\ R1 -- 10 Megohm
/
\
+ ----------> Scope Probe "In"
\
/
\ R2 -- 1 Megohm
/
\
Probe Ground ----> Scope Probe Ground "In"
You can also do a capacitor network with resistor bypasses, but the
drawing
for that would look just awful.
Another thing you can do is connect a simple ol' NE-2 neon light between
probe-hot and ground. If it goes on, there's more than ~~70 volts between
hot
and ground, and that's really time to back off with the probe and triple
check, and be certain you know what you're doing.
Other coilers have related stories of blowing various systems in their
houses (burglar alarms, garage door openers, and whatnot).
Never a dull moment with Tesla Coils! Oh, well, that's part of the fun.
Thanks,
Dave Small
In a message dated 10/31/2009 9:57:04 A.M. Mountain Daylight Time,
evp@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
G Hunter wrote:
What's a wenherst generator? Are you referring to a Wimshurst
electrostatic machine? Please explain what you are trying to do. I
don't have
enough information to understand your question, let alone answer it.
Cheers,
Gregory R. Hunter
If that's what you're talking about I wouldn't get it anywhere near
a scope- possibility of high voltage discharge and blowing up the input
to the scope.
Ed
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