Re: My variac bites =0

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

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Tesla729-at-cs-dot-com>

In a message dated 11/22/01 9:55:14 PM Central Standard Time, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
writes: 


>
> Conductive objects that are not bonded to ground can become charged up. Do 
> not bond yourself to ground- this is very very dangerous! 
>
> My solution was to move further back from the coil and tape a spray paint 
> can cover over the variac dial. This stopped me from getting zapped from the 
> set screws. 
>
> Sue 



Sue, Jason,all, 

I've experienced this problem in the past myself. I'm now running 
a 10 kVA pole pig powered system and I don't have anymore pro- 
blems with this. My solution to this annoyance was the installa- 
tion of an RF grounded "chicken wire" Faraday screen between 
yours truly and the spark spouting behemoth :-0 This screen was 
actually originally installed to protect the operator (that would be 
myself) from a rogue 12 or 13 footer that may somehow be able 
to reach beyond the normal 10 ft range of the streamers inside 
my terribly claustrophobic 12 X 20 shop/lab. The elimination of 
the "shocking" problem was an extra bonus that I hadn't even 
figured on :-) 

Sparking in Memphis, 
David Rieben