Re: 4th-of-july showings

["Stan" <sdarling-at-columbus.rr-dot-com> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)]

There seems to be a commonality between tesla coiling and things that
explode or catch fire.   I'd guess most coilers took a magnifying glass
to combustible materials and perhaps a few ants as kids. ;)  Anyway....

Terry, what about using one of those "PIR" motion detectors and rigging
a simple circuit to cut TC power when it detects motion.  Obviously
you'd want to tinker with the range and angle so that a passing car or a
person outside the danger zone wouldn't trigger it.  You could also use
the IR beam/reflector jobs that lots of stores have to notify them when
someone comes in the door.  Just a thought....seems fairly simple to
implement, though.

-Stan

Terry Fritz wrote:
> 
> Hi Sundog,
> 
>         I have been thinking about setting my big coil up in the front
yard.  With
> the recent forest fires and dry weather here and the "Police in full force"
> out to enforce the "absolutely no fireworks" laws in the city, Tesla coils
> seem rather tame...  Last year, me and the brothers had an "accident" when
> all the fireworks all caught on fire at once!  We had gone 365 days since
> we had an accident like that before! :-))  So..., this seems like a good
> year to "lay low"...
> 
>         My concern is crowd control.  Realizing that last year, this
"safe and
> sane" town, had so many "illegal" fireworks going off you could not see
> across the streets through all the smoke...  "Some people" delighted in
> firing pop bottle rockets at passing police cars (to which, about 40 cops
> responded :-))...  And this college town sells more beer this weekend than
> any other time...  (Ok, so we take "our" 4th seriously here :-))  It is
> just a darn difficult time to maintain a safe working environment for a
> coil in the front yard...  But I will try to pull it off...
> 
>         I will borrow a lab coat from work so I look official and have all my
> Tesla coil "licenses" ready (a miracle of high resolution ink jet printing
> :-)).  That way I should be "official" enough to command the situation and
> "pull the plug" if needed.  It's a little hard since you need good lighting
> around the coil area which detracts from the arcs but you do have to be
> absolutely careful!
> 
> Cheers,
> 
>         Terry
> 
> 
> 
> At 12:24 PM 6/29/00 -0400, you wrote:
> >
> >Hi All!!
> >
> >Just out of curiosity, how many of you all intend to show off your coils on
> >the 4th to your friends, families, etc. ?  How many intend to make their
> >coil the "main event?" (especially for us "too dry for fireworks" places :(
> >
> >
                      Caio!
> >
                Sundog
> >