Re: secondary question

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Hollmike-at-aol-dot-com>

Hi Will,
   This is not unusual.  I have gotten many little shocks like that and I 
know others have too.  It has been speculated that there could be a residual 
charge left on the coil from the last 'bang' when turned off.  It could also 
be due to the coil form behaving like an electret(self charging capacitor).  
It could even be that you are picking up a static charge and are discharging 
yourself through the coil.  I am not sure exactly why this happens, but it 
doesn't seem to be a safety problem.
Mike

<< Hi Everyone,
 
      This weekend I just finished my first coil (6") and got results of 12"
 which was about what I expected due to no tuning, it's incomplete power
 supply and bad topload.  Well anyways I was running it at 30 second
 intervals making changes each time and after the 3rd run I noticed the
 secondary was a bit crooked.  So I discharged the caps and reached out and
 put my hands on the seconday to lift it to look at it and I got a
 surprizing shock.  I touched it a few more times and got a few more jolts
 and found the higher up I got the more powerful they were.  After about
 five jolts they died but after I powered the coil they came back.  I had
 never heard of this on any pages before (although I may be wrong) so I was
 surprized.  They weren't terribly powerful but they did fell a lot like
 static shocks from a Van De Graff generator, but I'm not sure how my coil
 could produce much static.  The only other guess I can make is that since
 the secondary exhibits isotropic (self) capacit!
 an!
 ce to the ground, it could retain a charge after the power is turned off.
 Has anyone else encountered this?  Does anyone know if these shocks are
 safe, because after writing this I feel like shocking myself maybe wasn't
 the smartest thing I could of done.
       
       An admirer of coilers everywhere,
      -Will Daniels      >>