Re: Discharging HV Caps

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

Original poster: "Sundog by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <sundog-at-timeship-dot-net>


----- Original Message -----
From: Tesla list <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2001 8:55 PM
Subject: RE: Discharging HV Caps


> Original poster: "Lau, Gary by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<Gary.Lau-at-compaq-dot-com>
>
> >I would think the best way to manually discharge the cap would be by
> using an
> >insulated stick of some kind and shorting the spark gap.
>
> This sounds appealing in that no potentially-open resistors are needed.
> But if the cap did contain a significant charge, it would ring up the
> primary, then the secondary, and odds are that you'd be standing pretty
> close to or touching the secondary, and....
>
Snip!

Yup! Been there, done that!  Took a sizeable hit to the back of my forearm
of the arm holding the shorting wand.  It was a roughly 20" spark, hit my
arm and popped out my foot to the floor.  That was the *last* time I did
that, and subsequent runs used a string of 10mohm resistors across the
capacitor.  The coil was a 9/60 powered 2x13" coil, and could throw roughly
a 30-33" spark on a 13nf tank cap.  Mean little bugger.

Shad