Complying with Australian regulations

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

Original poster: "Peter Terren" <pterren-at-iinet-dot-net.au> 

Had a visit from the electrical inspector from the Dept of Energy Safety 
here in Western Australia.

This occurred as some kid showed my website to his Dad (from the Dept).

Basically I passed!

Here's how. In WA you are allowed to wire a plug and no more unless you are 
an electrician.  However, the Dept is only concerned up to the point when 
the mains is dropped down to 50VAC (or 110VDC). Everything after that is OK 
even if you step it up to 240V it seems or in my case up to 500kV.

So for the inspection I connected one arc welder to step down 240 to 50V 
120A then another to step them up again to 240V to run my 4 MOT supply for 
the Tesla coil.  (Home arc welders output 48 - 50 V to be legal).  Actually 
with losses and a slight voltage difference between the welders I get about 
210VAC out.

Presumably this can supply other home made 240 V mains equipment.

I also had to satisfy him that I knew about safety and wasn't making an 
income from it or doing public displays.
I aslo demonstrated Ignition coil supplies and flyback transformers all 
running off low voltage as well as a van der Graaff generator. No problem.

I didn't demo my other HV supplies or NST supplies but presumably OK if 
passing through 50V.
The OK still has to be confirmed from Perth headquarters.

Hope this helps other people in Australia.  ? anything similar in the US/UK.

Peter (Tesla Downunder)
<http://members.iinet-dot-net.au/~pterren>http://members.iinet-dot-net.au/~pterren