RE: Strange shock

["Oxandale, Terry" <Toxandale-at-SPP-dot-org> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)]

I believe this was a static charge. It has bitten me several times with
my 5" coil. It is especially strong after the coil has been run, but
will even rear it's ugly head if I rub it briskly will transporting just
the secondary coil by itself.

Terry

> ----------
> From: 	Tesla list[SMTP:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
> Sent: 	Friday, July 07, 2000 7:22 PM
> To: 	tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
> Subject: 	Strange shock
> 
> Original poster: "Chris Brick" <cbrick-at-rebelbase-dot-com> 
> 
> Hello coilers-
> 
> I had a strange experience on the 4th.  We ran our coil in Santa Cruz,
> CA 
> as fireworks since they are illegal there.  We had a nice crowd and
> cars 
> stopping for about an hour.  The coil ran great, at one point for
> almost 20 
> minutes straight with no detectable heat in the MMC and no spark
> length 
> degradation.  Good quality show with consistent 36" streamers to air
> from 
> our little 15/30 NST.  Anyhow, after the show was over I proceeded to 
> dismantle the coil as I have done a hundred times.  I removed the
> secondary 
> after disconnecting all the wiring and capacitors.  I received a small
> 
> shock from the secondary while holding it in my hands, away from
> everything 
> and totally disconnected.  One of my engineer friends didn't believe
> me so 
> he picked it up and got the same shock.  It is built on a 4". thin
> wall PVC 
> drain pipe, sealed, and has 1/4x20 bolts epoxyed in each end.  The
> larger 
> of the two shocks I got was from the bottom bolt.  The bottom of the 
> winding is connected to the bottom bolt for grounding.  The top bolt
> is 
> used to connect the toroid and doesn't have a connection to the 
> windings.  Any thoughts on why there would be some charge built up in
> the 
> secondary?  Either way, it didn't hurt and I didn't die, but I sure
> would 
> like to know what it was all about.  I am not too familiar with Leyden
> 
> Jars, but Steve the engineer had some ideas about the possible cause.
> 
> Also, those of you that are interested in rewinding a large
> transformer for 
> Tesla use may find it worthwhile to become friends with a local
> commercial 
> electrician.  I was just offered a 150KVA 240/2400 transformer for 
> $150.00.  It seems once they punch the wiring holes, they can't return
> them 
> to the distributor and can only sell them back at around $1 per KVA.
> I am 
> going to collect a few for the cores and build myself a nice sized 
> transformer.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Chris
> 
> 
>