Re: Solid State Tesla Coil - Mysterious Electrical Shocks

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

Original poster: "S Gaeta by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <sgtporky-at-prodigy-dot-net>

Dan,

Be especially careful if for any reason your SSTC is running, and fails to
break out! You will have so much RF in your shack that your head will spin!
You can get some really nasty rf burns that way. It can also start a fire
somewhere else in the shack if something is floating above ground and
separated by flammable material between it and a grounded "something else"
near by. Always make sure that the coil is breaking out. The streamers eat
up alot of the power and causes much less to be radiated as EM fields.

My 304 TL coil taught me a lesson. When I powered it up for the for the
first time, it was out of tune and not breaking out. I heard a strange
zorching noise 10 feet away. When I shut the power off and went to where the
noise was, I smelled wood burning. It seemed to be comming from my other
tesla coil, so I moved it outside to finish my testing.

If you are caught in a high RF situation, one trick is to have a key, or
some other piece of metal ready in your hand. When you need to touch the
anything on the panel, touch the key to a metal part of the panel first,
then with the key firmly contacting the panel, you can touch the controls
with the other hand. When you are done with the adjustment, make sure that
you only remove the key when your other hand is free from the panel. Don't
be surprised if you see an inch long hot looking NST like arc between the
key and the panel while you feel absolutely no sensation. This goes against
the "keep one hand in your pocket" advice, so you need to make sure that
there is no live DC, or supply voltages any where near you when you are in
this situation. If you become adept at it, you can do the key thing and work
the control or switch with the same hand (practice with the coil off first).

Sue