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Re: Hazardous radiation produced by a Tesla Coil?



> 
> With all the responses, there have been next to no facts present -
exactly
> what I'm looking for.  I know the voltage and noise is a problem, but
those
> can be avoided,
> and are.  I was hoping for more the exact measured amount of radiation
> falling in
> certain frequencies such as gamma, microwave, and UV - such as with a
chart,
> etc...

I haven't measured any ionizing radiation (alpha,beta,gamma,x-ray) from my
coil using the PC based geiger counter from Aware Electronics. I doubt that
there is any, even from a monster coil like Greg Leyh's Electrum, as there
isn't any physics mechanism to account for its generation (no vacuum, for
instance, which pretty much rules out x-rays). The di/dt isn't fast enough
to generate xrays or neutrons.

UV will be highly variable, but, given that the gap operates at 1
atmosphere, most of the energy will be relatively long wave UV (i.e. you're
not going to see any 100 nm vacuum UV here). Hazard wise it is no different
than arc welding. I imagine that if you searched in an industrial hygiene
library you could find some data on UV from arcs as well as damage
thresholds for eyes. As a practical matter, nobody measures it: you know
that UV is bad, it is uncomfortable during the exposure, so you shield. 
Ask any arc welder who forgot to wear long sleeves and got a nice
"sun"burn.

Noise is also highly variable, depending on environmental factors more than
anything (particularly the reverberation time of your room). Get the little
sound level meter from Radio Shack and set it on the C weighting scale if
you are curious.

It is loud enough to make your ears ring, which should tell you right away
that you need hearing protection. Earplugs are cheap. If you want high
tech, get some fancy hearing protectors like the Peltor Tactical 7S. They
have microphones and speakers and limiting amps, so you can still hear the
crackle and hiss of corona before the breakdown, but when the loud noise
comes, they shut down.

> Has anyone seen anything like this?
> 
> 
>