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Re: Wet Coiling
Tesla List wrote:
>
> Subscriber: bert.hickman-at-aquila-dot-com Sun Jan 5 20:55:58 1997
> Date: Sat, 04 Jan 1997 23:23:22 -0800
> From: Bert Hickman <bert.hickman-at-aquila-dot-com>
> To: tesla-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com
> Subject: Wet Coiling
>
> Hi All!
>
> We just had a very wet, unseasonably warm day, which followed some much
> colder weather. The enclosed porch my coil is housed in in felt very
> damp, and the windows were steamed. I tried to fire up the coil, in
> preparation for a visitor I had coming over. However, I failed to notice
> that virtually everything on the coil, caps, neons, and gaps was covered
> with a light coating of dew!
>
> Fortunately, the gap never even fired, since the static gap was
> virtually shorted out - miriads of little coronal discharges played
> between the water droplets inside and outside the PVC pipe gaps housing!
> Lucky thing, since the secondary was also coated with water! After
> putting a dehumidifier in the room, wiping down the secondary, and
> baking the PVC static gap, I was able to get the beast somewhat
> operational in time for my visiting friend. Just another little wrinkle
> to watch out for when coiling in a less-than-ideal environment!
>
> Anyway, Safe (and non-underwater) coilin' to ya!
>
> -- Bert --
Bert,
Yet another wrinkle. I had a large area on my lab floor covered with
fine aluminum particles.(from sawing up number of article for a new
gap). When I ran maggey #9 at 3 KW, small sparks arced althroughout the
mass of particles even though there were no real connections to the
system 8 feet away. A concrete floor based, high power, Branley coherer
of sorts. Hah!
Finally, I was working on an unrelated project where I had to form and
work a number of pieces of elemental niobium and hafnium, and gadolinium.
I had accumulated a smallish pile of mixed filings and dusts near my
lathe. When maggey #10A was fired a couple of years ago, they went up in
a giant ball of seering, white hot, flame. I now police all filings,
grinder residue, lathe turnings etc and dispose of them or store them in
a safe place in an out building for disposal.
Richard Hull, TCBOR