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Safety note: was Differences between "bad" streamers and "good" streamers



Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Tesla729-at-cs-dot-com>

In a message dated 4/8/03 9:57:24 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
tesla-at-pupman-dot-com writes:
>I have been experimenting with a 4-pack MOT supply myself lately.  When
>using 40nF of capacitor and an TCBOR/RQ type gap I got some nice thick 4'
>arcs from it.  I however didn't limit the current. :-)
>http://users2.ev1-dot-net/~nmyreality/tesla/psu/mot/motsparks.htm
>
>I think you'll see a big improvement by working on the spark gap.
>
>Mark Stolz
>Houston, TX

<http://teslacoils4christ-dot-org

Hi Mark, all,

That's some pretty doggoned impressive looking streamers!
Are they just hitting a drywalled ceiling? One note of safety
you may need to consider is a possible fire hazard. Yours
truly was doing just that inside a vacant room of the house
that I was residing in at the time several years ago and I
started noticing a smell of something burning. I kept notic-
ing it and being a firefighter by profession, I decided to
find out where the "smell" was coming from. I looked out-
side of the house and discovered that there was a little bit
of smoke oozing out from underneath the cornice. I quickly
ran up into the attic and found that the cellulose insulation
directly above where I was firing the coil (with its beautiful,
bright streamers hitting the ceiling with reckless abandon)
had ignited into a smoky, smoldering fire. I quickly grabbed
a pot full of water and poured it liberally onto the smoldering
insulation. Left an ugly water mark on the ceiling but at least
the house was still standing!

Bottom line, most of us are very careful about the electrocu-
tion hazards of our hobby, as well we should be, but I think
sometimes we tend to forget the fire hazard aspect of it. And
streamers, especially those from powerful coils, can start a
small smoldering fire in textile or wooden products that we
may not even notice until it's too late. If I had just left the
house right after playing with the coil before I had noticed
the smell of smoke, I may very well have come home to a
pile of ashes! I'm in no way trying to take a pot-shot at Mark
and I'm sure Mark dosen't take it this way. I'm only trying to
make us ALL a little more (fire) safety conscience about our
hobby from some first-hand, personal experience.

Spark safely,
David Rieben