RE: Am I courting disaster?

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

Original poster: "Christopher Boden" <chrisboden-at-hotmail-dot-com> 

That would be me :)

I have them in 3 sizes, the small 14.4kV ones that are about a foot long 
and 3"dia or so, some big ones that are about 7"dia and 16"tall, and a pair 
(we HAD 3) that are about 4'tall and 9"dia. At a teslathon a few years ago 
we were setup in a shopping mall and one of the tall ones got knocked over 
and shattered into a thousand pieces.

I also opened one of the short-fat ones just to see. The only way I've 
found to open them is dropping them (or use a hammer) a grinder won't even 
make a dent as the ceramic material they are made of is tougher than you 
can imagine (staion-post insulators are designed to hold MANY thousand of 
pounds and these are built of the same stuff, checkout a Lapp Insulator 
catalogue).

Inside they are hollow (the walls about 1" thick at minimum), and they hold 
a stack of MOVs and other things, at the bottom is a big spring and a 
copper ribbon. Functionally they are just a giant MOV, there is no actual 
airspace inside any that I have opened.




Christopher "Duck" Boden Geek#1
President / C.E.O. / Alpha Geek
The Geek Group
www.thegeekgroup-dot-org
Because the Geek shall inherit the Earth!





>From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
>To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
>Subject: RE: Am I courting disaster?
>Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 17:54:38 -0700
>
>Original poster: Yurtle Turtle <yurtle_t-at-yahoo-dot-com>

>though it may be more than a simple spark gap. Someone
>on the list disected one once, though I forget what he
>found.
>
>Adam