Tesla coils and Dr. Who

[Fernbay]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdrqdW4Miao&feature=player_embedded]YouTube - Tesla Coils - Arc Attack - Doctor Who Theme Song - Makers Faire 2010 - San Mateo - No. 1[/ame]

[gordon_s1942]

Very Very spectacular and he can have that all on his own.
This is how they work on those Extra High Voltage (500,000 V) transmission lines with a 'suit like that and thats another job I aint interested in.
I wonder when they are doing this performance if the humidity of the air plays a part in allowing the arc to form??
I think when the humidity is low is when you get 'sparks' from the car when you touch the shell or swing out and get a static charge from the nylon in the seat cover material.

Of course anything to do with Dr Who and the Theme (shades of William Hartnell) gets me everytime.

[mobihci]

you can actually do that without a suit, though it would hurt/burn a bit and you wouldnt get nearly as well formed arcs too.

the frequency the tesla coil is running at is high enough to prevent penetration too deep in the skin.-

[hoe]

i priced a similar coil and controller, $32000 aud.........

[Onefella]

I scored an interesting piece of hardware from my last job. It's a 5kVA 200:1 transformer. The 1 is the primary winding! It should be good for a decent jacob's ladder.

Haven't fired it up yet, I need to get a HV test probe so I can measure the output as I (slowly) increase the input voltage with a variac.

[iwacelect]

the frequency the tesla coil is running at is high enough to prevent penetration too deep in the skin.-

you've never been bitten by one have you!

here's one we made for our apprentice to take to TAFE, he found out why insulation is a good idea.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0ZD_GfvKCw"]YouTube- caleb gets zapped from tesla coil[/ame]

"skin affect"... LOL put your own skin on the line then make that comment!

[mobihci]

i have been bitten by worse quite a few times (fbt eht direct contact with higher possible current and no isolation). by far the worst is low frequency ac, you hang on. dc kicks you. of course it all depends on the overall voltage and how well you are isolated.

the skin effect is true, at higher frequencies (even the 30khz of a tv etc) you will get a bit of a tingle from the lower voltage ranges, the skin burns a bit at contact in the thousands, at eht it will give you a jolt, good scare, but is unlikely to kill you. low frequency on the other hand will pass through the body/heart/spine etc, even at low voltages it is dangerous. dc can kill easily too given high enough voltages.

this is a bit basic, but it is correct-

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvxmleqUwuQ]YouTube - The Tesla Coil[/ame]

notice he uses a rod to prevent burning.

[iwacelect]

our apprentice THOUGHT he was ok using a screw driver, the problem was the insulation provided by the handle of the screw driver wasn't, it was actually a spark gap...ours runs at 325khz

had plenty of EHT, RF transmiter burn, deflection... doing purity on a 68" looking in the mirror and grabbing the lugs on the yoke and NOT the purity rings is always fun....NOT!

[mobihci]

the main problem now with the eht output from newer flybacks is that they 1/ have full cascade circuit, instead of a single diode and 2/ are integrated inside the fbt itself, so no more tripplers and dc straight from the fbt. the line from the fbt to the trippler was a common breakdown point in older monitors/tvs. fortunately the eht leads have improved and no longer go brittle with time though still do get holes at times, but the fbt casing itself has not improved and are still likely to get cracks and holes in them over time.

maybe your coil/siting didnt have a decent rf ground or something similar. if the insulation between primary and secondary breaks down/flash over at any time, it will become dangerous too, though it is always possible to get rf burns from something like that, holding a metal rod would have prevented that. even those tiny little bloody backlight inverters with their 1kv or so can give your skin a bit of a burn.