Re: Can You Get Zapped by your coil with out being harmed?

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

Original poster: "Jim Lux by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net>

Don't do something stupid.

While the spark MIGHT not hurt you, it's kind of like saying that when you 
spin the revolver's cylinder playing Russian Roulette, you MIGHT not get 
the chamber with the bullet.

As a practical matter, the big risks are:
1) The spark itself might have low energy, but it IS an ionized path (read: 
good conductor) and if the other end of the spark is connected to something 
"bad" (i.e. the power line), then you might wind up being part of a higher 
current/energy circuit than you had planned.

2) RF sparks aren't particularly painful "at the time", but have this 
annoying tendency to cause quite deep burns. The frequency of the current 
is high enough that your nerves don't respond, so you don't feel it as a 
shock, just the heating. Unfortunately, the heating is deep, where you 
don't have many nerves.  Net result, serious burn damage, small pain at 
first, big pain later.

3) The "startle" might cause you to injure yourself with mechanical trauma.


At 02:39 PM 2/6/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>Original poster: "Timothy R. Alkema by way of Terry Fritz 
><teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <ALKEMAT-at-student.gvsu.edu>
>
>I have a coil that i built a year ago and I have played wit it a lot.  I 
>have never been "hit" by a spark but i was wondering if you can actually 
>let the spark jump to your finger without killing yourself.  It runs off 
>of a 4000 volt transformer with 1 shunt removed.  its about ten inches 
>tall so its not huge.  Let me know so I dont do something stupid;)