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Dangers of running 2 coils...
Last weekend I lugged my coil over to fellow coiler Brian Basura's
house. After the initial ooohs and aaahs, we took a break to so some
tuning to our respective coils. Brian finished while I was still
working on opening my gap up a bit and asked me if he could try some
quick test runs. I was about 2X as far away as I figured that his coil
could reach, so I said go for it. About 15 seconds into his run I
wondered if my cap might possibly be getting charged from the huge field
that his coil was emitting. I took the "red" cap wire that was in my
hand and brought it close the the "black" cap wire on the gap. At about
1/4" away I got a huge "bang". I quickly slid the wires on the same
bolt and backed away!
This brought my attention to several issues
1. The caps should always have a shorting wire when you are working on
the coil. I always discharge them with a "shorting tool", but I now
realize that this practice is inadequate.
2. Similar coils can act as a transmitter / receiver pair! Be careful
messing with one while the other is running close by!
Later in the night, we observed that I could make the spark gap fire on
his unplugged coil while mine was running. Our coils were about 10 ft
apart.
It almost got me - don't let it get you!
--
Ross Overstreet
ICQ# 20762411
www.geocities-dot-com/CapeCanaveral/Cockpit/3377/