Re: NON-static shocks from unpowered secondary?

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

Original poster: "Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <acmq-at-compuland-dot-com.br>

Tesla list wrote:
> 
> Original poster: "BunnyKiller by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<bigfoo39-at-telocity-dot-com>

> Many of us have also been nailed by the " unconnected" secondary and
> have our own war stories. Thinking back on the "attack" I had, (
> prompted by your email) just maybe , remotely possible, something to
> think about,  I wonder if the body acts as a capacitor in conjunction
> with the secondary for that brief instant we recieve the shock ( and
> thats why it is so intence? and kinda like an AC feeling)  is it
> possible that between us and the secondary combination we get an
> oscilation for that microsecond of contact???

This is indeed very possible. The discharge that you feel is 
essentially similar to the discharge of the "self-capacitance"
of the coil. It can't be a quick electrostatic discharge, because
the inductance of the coil holds back the current. An interesting
experiment would be to observe the resulting waveforms:
A suggestion: Insulate a coil and connect one of its terminals
to a voltage source (can be low) through a large resistor. This
is just to charge the "body capacitance" of the coil (about twice
its self-capacitance). Connect an oscilloscope, with memory, to
a small grounded capacitor (~100 pF) and observe the waveform
when you connect the coil to the capacitor through a switch.
Compare with what happens if you do the same with a large metal
object with the size of the coil.

Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz