Re: Arc pulling, was Touching/Sitting on your coil

["Christopher Boden" <chrisboden-at-hotmail-dot-com> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)]

>Original poster: "Bryan Steinbach" <warp27-at-juno-dot-com>
>
> > DO NOT USE BLACK PVC (or ABS) FOR ANY TYPE OF JESUS STICK! The Black is
>
> > frequently made with Carbon and your "Insulator" will bite you. Use
>White,
> > clear, Green, and if you're a little daring grey. But never Black. I
>believe
> > Grey is safe, but I've never used it.
> >
> >
> > I am running a 12/60 nst coil.
> >
> >      paul mathus
>
>Hrm, I had no problems running a small 3"x8" coil wound on black ABS that
>made 7" sparks...
>
>Bryan Steinbach


I've heard of others that have managed the same. But on the flip side, I've 
heard of people having their first coil (usually the hardest to build) go up 
in smoke for (at the time) no appearant reason. There was a thread on this 
about 4 months ago where a young man had a foul stench and carbon tracking. 
- from a black sec form.

I suspect preperation, and exact composition has a GREAT deal to do with the 
success rate of Black plastic in secondaries. Though the variables are too 
numerous to calculate and it's better to just play safe and avoid it 
altogether.

The learning curve with Tesla Coils and related technology is astounding and 
unforgiving. Most often failure is a black and white issue. Either it works 
or it burns (though in the event of success it usually works, THEN burns), 
in the worst case scenerios, you make a small mistake and you can easily 
die.

In the beginning a lot of us have a million ideas, and twice as many 
questions. It's the patient masses of educated people out here that are the 
reason that many of us are alive. Had I learned the things I now know 
without the help of this list I would have surely had at the very least a 
few (more) interesting scars to remind me of the learning curve. And it 
would have taken me MUCH longer to get my first coil running.

Ive gone from starting with a small 6" coil, to (currently) building a nice 
Pig system, and am working on getting the property for what will be one of 
the worlds largest (1MVA) coils. (Project Avalon) and without this list, 
none of them would have ever been even a possibility.

Thank's guys for an amazing resource, and for fielding 2 years of dumb 
questions from the King of the Geeks.




Christopher A. Boden Geek#1
President / Founder
The Geek Group
www.geekgroup-dot-org
Because the Geek shall inherit the Earth!

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