Re: NEC and Tesla Coils

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

Original poster: "Terry Fritz" <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>

Hi,

Jim's comments pretty much mirror my own.  We "one in a million" Tesla coil
hobbyists fall bellow the "radar" for most legal standards.  Unless you are
going to sell them or do some other really public thing that may place the
"unqualified" near them, they pretty much don't care and the standards
don't apply.  I have looked into some of the VDE and TUV regulations and
you probably could get even those ratings with a little work and a lot
money.  Even a "diabolical" thing like a Tesla coil is acceptable as long
as it is no more dangerous than it is "supposed" to be ;-))

There are a few things to watch out for:

The FCC.  If your coil sends out enough electrical noise to make someone
mad, the FCC will be on top of you pretty quick.  Since coils run only for
tiny odd times during the month, you will probably be too hard to find in
any case (but modern technology is getting pretty good at finding them).
Of course, proper grounding and a little sense will remove this problem
anyway.  Putting a CW coil "on the air" with a big short wave antenna will
get you into hot water FAST!

Police and neighbors may think your a public nuisance if you like to run
you big 30kW coil in your front yard at 3:00am in the middle of the city...
 Everyplace has a variety of odd laws to handle such "pests".

There are a few "diabolical device" laws to handle those folks who like to
make CO2 rockets, explosives, 50 megawatt lasers and other "unneighborly"
things.  However, those things will only apply after you have really
screwed up and they are looking for a reason to take your stuff away from
you to save the town from further damage... 

If you need high power electrical brought in, that will have to be to code.
 What you hook to it after that is pretty much up to you.  The reason you
need all the code stuff is so "they" don't have to care what "you" do next...

If you hurt someone or burn your house down, you may have a hard time
explaining the 250kV arcs to the ceiling and such to the lawyers and
insurance people...

When one looks at the known deaths from our hobby:

http://hot-streamer-dot-com/TeslaCoils/Misc/Deaths.txt

There is not much to go on.  Transtrom was killed in a stage act back when
a lot of people were getting killed in stage acts.  The recent child's
death was an obvious "mistake".  However, the McDonnell Douglas death would
definitely raise a lot of eyebrows of OSHA and others but it was classified
as a freak accident since they didn't have any previous records...

I think to make a long story short.  Unless we start getting killed right
and left or causing big troubles for others, there is no reason to worry
with legalities.  In a way, we are lucky that this is such a dangerous
hobby.  We know all too well what we are dealing with and we protect
"ourselves"...

I think Richard Petty (NASCAR race driver) said it best...  "When we screw
up, we don't have to worry about getting a traffic ticket or going to the
penalty box.  They just take a wrecker and an ambulance, and come a getch
ya..."

Cheers,

	Terry



At 04:24 PM 3/17/2001 -0800, you wrote:
>It occurs to me, reading over David's stuff, and my copy of the NEC, that
>really, the NEC (and the building code) applies primarily to permanent
>installations.
>
>For "portable equipment", NEC regulates some aspects.. things like power
>cords, although it really doesn't aim at that "market". For instance, the
>NEC isn't used to regulate PC's, Televisions, etc.
>
>Also, for instance, NEC prohibits installation of electric sign equipment
>operating at >1kV in a residence.  But, of course, the monitor you are
>reading this on has a 15-20 kV supply that is unequivocally lethal in it.
>
>In fact, there isn't much in the way of legal regulation for these sorts of
>things. If you were to try and sell them, some jurisdictions (Los Angeles
>County in California, for instance, but not Ventura County) require that all
>appliances and electrical equipment be either UL listed, or UL tested and
>approved, or approved by a recognized testing lab, etc...
>
>But, since your average tesla coil isn't being manufactured for sale, these
>laws wouldn't apply.
>
>OSHA rules apply to "occupation"... i.e. work (if you are being paid or
>volunteer...) and don't really apply to owner/operated.
>
>I think that as far as safety regulation goes, "good engineering practice"
>is it.
>
>That said, I think that looking to the NEC and OSHA regs for guidance on
>formulating a set of "design requirements"..  Things like grounding,
>interlocks, bleeder resistors, current ratings of conductors, are all things
>that you need a starting point for.
>
>It's also important to make sure that you don't wind up inadvertently
>getting yourself regulated... If you start out with the (publicly) stated
>intention that you will "meet code", you're probably doomed to failure.
>Which code? Which regulations? Who's doing the inspecting?  This is
>definitely one of those things where you probably don't want to even start
>down the path.
>
>As it is, TC's are a hobby or avocation, not particularly more or less
>dangerous than any other hobby such as metalworking, car racing, shooting,
>sewing (every year more people are disabled in the garment industry than in
>electrical industry, on both absolute and percentage basis).  None of these
>activities are particularly regulated (except, perhaps, shooting) when done
>on a non-business basis, other than common sense sorts of general laws
>prohibiting you from creating a nuisance or hazard.
>
>Everything is different if you are doing it for a profession (paid or not).
>Then it will primarily be up to your insurance carrier and the places that
>you show your coil.  Those of you that have done TC stuff for organized
>haunted houses, school assemblies, film production, all know about what
>hoops you have to jump through. (And they vary from instance to
>instance....)
>