Near death from the smallest Tesla Coil I've ever built

To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Near death from the smallest Tesla Coil I've ever built
From: "Jeff Behary" <jeff_behary-at-hotmail-dot-com> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)
Date: Mon, 06 Sep 1999 10:24:52 -0600
Approved: twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net
Delivered-To: fixup-tesla-at-pupman-dot-com-at-fixme

Bill,

Ok, I've been building Tesla Coils for 5 years.
My latest coil runs from a 90kV X-ray transformer.

Last night I acquired the smallest neon transformer I've ever come across, 
3kV 30mA.

I was tired, in the garage all day (literally), plugged in the coil (with 
the power off) and decided to tighten up the transformer connections a bit 
more before throwing the switch.  Well, the switch on the transformer was 
faulty and after several seconds of firmly gripping and tightening the input 
power nuts, the switch failed and power kicking in:  I instantly had 3kV 
30mA shorted across my heart, coming from either hand, up my arms.  My body 
was shaking in pain and fright for 20 minutes afterwards.

That transformer, hardly the size of a grapefruit, nearly ended my life!!!!

And from such a foolish thing.  Don't mess with any connections without 
totally disabling the power, unplugging the coil, switching the breaker, 
etc.

30mA at 100 volts can kill a person.  That transformer was rated at 30 times 
more than that.  And that was about the smallest high voltage transformer on 
the market.

Don't ever let yourselves get in too much of a hurry, or too tired while 
coiling.  It's not worth it.

Jeff Behary







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