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Re: Practical limits



Original poster: "Christopher Boden by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <chrisboden-at-hotmail-dot-com>

>Original poster: "Matt S. by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" 
><matt777777-at-hotmail-dot-com>
>
>Hi,
>I am nearing the point where I will fire up my coil for the first time 
>(thanks
>to those who responded to my "where to stop the house ground" - Gary Lau, 
>after
>reading your comments on your web site re: EMI filter hookup and looking 
>the
>schematic of mine, it's a no-brainer - thanks).
>*** My question now is what are practical limits for distance between my 
>coil
>and computers, etc.  I have cheap 486's for my kids ethernetted (?) 
>throughout
>the house to my good computer... and  then the usual wiring, phone lines, 
>Tv,
>etc.  Not a lot of indoor space, but I'd really like to be able to run it
>inside.
>My Coil: 12kv/60ma NST, ~20" o.d. primary, 4.25" secondary, 17" o.d toroid.
>I'm really hoping for comments from people based on actual experience as
>opposed to: "you'll fry your brother's first grade teacher's dentist's 2nd
>cousin's neighbor's pepper grinder in Latvia"  (no offense to Latvians).


Sveiks!, he he he


>But comments about what was actually fried unintentionally by people, and 
>how
>close/why would be great! (and especially how you would avoid it now).
>(Christopher Boden, I noticed a post from you where you ran a coil in an
>Internet Cafe? -- how far from the nearest computer? ... ).


Ok, here's what we had.

We had 2 successful demos (with several Latvians present, just to be safe) 
of both the Project Sam coil (6"x24"sec-at-12kv/120ma) and the Sparky (with the 
incredibly lame name) Project coil (same specs basicly) at the Boogies Cyber 
Cafe. Both indoors and out.

The coils were RF grounded to a lamp post and were run at distances of about 
8' minimum to about 25' maximum from a group of over 17 computers.

Before the run:

We signed our life away. An iron-clad waiver stating that, as long as 
Boogies played by our rules, we would replace/repair any damaged gear.

They played by our rules. 10 minutes before first-light (setting the safetys 
and tuning) they turned off and unplugged EVERYTHING except the coolers. 
This included..

The cash register
ALL the computers (17 on the floor, 5 in the Pod (the REALLY nice ones), 2 
in the back, and 2 at the counter for the cash register and the live 
internet video feed).
Both stereos, both microwaves....everything.
All the computers had ALL the cables pulled, monitor, keyboard, mouse, 10bT, 
etc...


We never had a single incident with damaging ANY of their gear.....ours 
however......lol

Mark, didn't we fry an NST on sparky out there at one point?



Now, Matt, keep in mind that this was a simple 1 hour demo (a couple of 
them), not a permanant install like at Sigma-6. I went through serious hell 
trying to find ways to put a HV lab next to a computer lab, and it's not 
happeneing. I added $2Million to the budget to build a dedicated building 
for our HV lab. And adding $2M to the budget is NOT something that the Bored 
of Directors likes me to do, they get rather upset actually. But it's 
justified when it saves worrying about 200 computers in a lab at $1500 each. 
Get the idea?

I believe that if you unplug EVERYTHING you will be ok. I'm sure enough in 
fact that I'll stake a pair of 486's on it. If you fry yours, doing what I 
said you could do. Bring them here and I'll give you a working pair.




>Naturally, I have to add that I'm hoping to avoid a Faraday cage.
>I purposely put this question off until it was almost done, so I could 
>trick
>myself into not being subject to the "what was I thinking" phenomenon (but 
>it
>didn't work).
>Thanks in advance,
>Matt.



Have fun!


Duck


Christopher A. Boden Geek#1
President / C.E.O. / Alpha Geek
The Geek Group
www.thegeekgroup-dot-org
Because the Geek shall inherit the Earth!



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