Re: Ignition coil burned?

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

Original poster: "Jason Petrou by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <jasonp-at-btinternet-dot-com>

I think that that may be your problem... ignition coils are:
1) meant to work at a peak of 16V
2) work at about 10A RMS
You probably exceeded both. The voltage doesn't cause heating (p=I^2R) but
it might have caused insulation breakdown.
Grounding the dimmer shouldnt make any problems...im not so sure about that
though!

If I have made any physics/electrical booboos please let me know... im a
chemistry man really :)

Be safe,
Jason

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2001 1:35 AM
Subject: Ignition coil burned?


> Original poster: "Greg by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>"
<wonkothesane-at-mediaone-dot-net>
>
> Hello,
>            I'm new to HV tinkering, today I hooked an ignition coil via
the
> dimmer
> switch, capacitor, 120V AC set up. This worked fine for about 20 seconds
> until a
> large poof of smoke exited from the coil. The smoke smell is a combo of
> burned oil
> and electrical fireish stench. So my guess is that I exceeded the max
> voltage for
> the coil? Is this a correct guess? any feed back would be appreciated.
Also I
> grounded the dimmer, would this be a problem? It's different from the
> setups I have
> seen
>
>
>
>