Re: What about test equipment and stuff?

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

Original poster: "Charles Brush by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <cfbrush-at-interport-dot-net>


>
>What he accomplished WAS totally awesome. Nowadays, anyone with access to 
>their own power sub-station and $50M (2003 dollars) could probably do the 
>same. ;-) Unfortunately, people with open-ended access to that kind of 
>power and money are not usually devoting it to a non-profit hobby, so the 
>existing records will probably stand. :-((  IIRC Tesla's "Big Coil" drew 
>enough power to melt down one of the main generators at the Colorado 
>Springs power plant.
>( He had to send some of his crew to help repair the damage).
>
>Matt D.



Hi Matt and everyone,

Just a note, I don't think Tesla's system caused the generator to fail 
because he was pulling too much power.  The event is mentioned in the 
Colorado Springs Notes.  Tesla had disconnected the "extra coil" from his 
system and was experimenting arcing the secondary directly to ground.  He 
was getting a powerful discharge a few feet long, when he noticed the 
lightning arrestors on his supply lines flashing over.  The generator 
failed shortly thereafter, and the failure appears to have been entirely 
caused by high voltage kickbacks.  This is similar to the mechanism that so 
often "takes out" neon transformers (on a larger scale of course!).  Don't 
forget that we are talking 1890's technology here, and less than a decade 
earlier there simply were no large scale power distribution systems 
anywhere in the world.  The generator's insulation was simply not capable 
of withstanding such severe high voltage transients.  In the notes Tesla 
appears to have been a little embarrassed by the whole thing and was 
careful not to let it happen again.  On a side note, the generator failure 
is often mentioned in conjunction with a wholly inaccurate account of Tesla 
producing huge bolts from the mast above the lab.  That's simply not how it 
happened.  For the real story read the CSN.


Zap!

Charles Brush
http://www.VoltNet-dot-com