Re: high voltage measurement w/ divider

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

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <dhmccauley-at-spacecatlighting-dot-com>

We did once have a voltage divider fail pretty spectacularly.  The thing got
extremely hot, and started smoking.
When removing the potting material, there were many pockets of smoke in the
potting.  Very interesting!

Dan



 > While there are plenty of things to be careful about when working with
high
 > voltages, let's not spread alarm where none is warranted.  Exploding wires
 > occur when pulse caps are discharged into (essentially) short circuits.  A
 > resistor in a divider network going open (or even if one were to short)
 > could not result in currents sufficient to explode anything.  The worst
 > that might happen is your meter may fry somewhat.
 >
 > Gary Lau
 > MA, USA
 >
 >  >Original poster: "brianb by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>"
 > <brianb-at-antelecom-dot-net>
 >  >
 >  >Guys,
 >  >
 >  >Be careful. A failure of one resistor here will most likely cascade down
the
 >  >string turning all the resistors and associated wiring into an exploding
 >  >wire experiment with shrapnel flying everywhere. Carefully think this
 >  >through and provide plenty of safety margin before proceeding...
 >  >
 >  >If you want to see what an unexpected failure scenario can do check out
 >
 >http://www.briananddebbie-dot-com/images/Backyard%20Science/Quarter%20Shrinker/
A
 >  >ccident/accident.htm
 >  >
 >  >Regards,
 >  >Brian B.
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >