Re: Sensitive Equipment - =)

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

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



>Original poster: "Jason Petrou by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" 
><jasonp-at-btinternet-dot-com>
>
>Hi Eric, Terry, All Geek,
>
> > Ground the coil with a ground rod and run it from a separate circuit 
>from
>the
> > computer and you will be safe.  If you can turn the PC off it's even
>better.
> > The danger is small in any case but if the PC does get bit, it will be
>"bad".
>
>Umm.... well... this isnt strictly true. PCs are protected by input line
>filters and a big metal faraday case cage... and as the geek group have
>shown the only effect that direct streamer hits from a coil have on a PC is
>a reeboot :)
>
>Best regards,
>Jason
>
>
>

Yes, but Jason, there's a couple things you overlooked :)

1. During the thon ALL the other computers at the Sigma-6 labs were shutdown 
and completely unplugged.
2. There is a special circuit in my office at Geekhouse with an isolated 
ground (the cool orange plugs) that we installed specificly for the 
half-dozen computers in my office.

I believe firsthand in the power of shielded cases. I was standing up front 
watching Scott's incredible coil hurling 10 and 12 foot power arcs at the 
computer for over 15 minutes before it finally died (and it had more help 
than the coil to kill it, we had to add an accelerant). Had we kept it up 
like we were we would have killed the coils ballast and power supply before 
we killed the computer (I believe Scott found ash in the case when he got 
home or something like that, and I felt the searing-hot inductors after the 
run).

However, I have destroyed computers by wiping a bit of dust off a 
well-charged monitor and then touching a computer case, and the arc there is 
only 1/4" long!

btw, once we opened the computer, the shielding effects of it's case went 
away :) It survived several hits not only to the outer case, but to the 
naked motherboard as well.

I've really got to post that video on the site, perhaps I'll work on that 
today. :)

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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