Re: kVA Effects on Discovery Channel

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

Original poster: "Harold Weiss" <hweiss-at-new.rr-dot-com> 

Hi Mike,

I was a little suprised at how fast the phone flared up myself.  When we
fried Barney at the Teslathon, he took about 10 sec or so to ignite.  The
individual streamers did burn small holes in his hide, but not enough to
start to combust him.  Once a large enough track was established, then he
began to burn.  Dr. R can give the power specs for Barney as it was his
coil.

Another possibility might be the type of capacitors in the phone.  My first
coil used a ceramic version of the MMC that would fail quite often.  I could
only do short runs with it, as the caps would get hot and the paraffin that
they were dipped in would melt.  The paraffin was a factory coating.  A
failure, was usually a flash and a loud bang, and all that was left was the
two leads.  With the thickness of the streamers of the KVA Effects coil, I
wouldn't doubt that it could have easily vaporized a ceramic cap and the
paraffin to possibly produce that effect.  I have also seen circuit boards
dipped in paraffin like substance instead of the nice green insulating
material you normally see today.  That could have also caused a rapid fire.
The last time I saw a paraffin insulated board was 92, in a cheap walkman
knockoff.

Brian B were you there?

David E Weiss

 > Original poster: Mike Poulton <mpoulton-at-mtptech-dot-com>
 >
 > Flash powder under the telephone? Wasn't the Tesla coil impressive
 > enough on it's own? I like pyro (I *am* a pyro), but not when it's
 > used deceptively and moronically. Plus, did the vaporizing wire
 > actually produce that smoke cloud on it's own? Not consistent with my
 > experience.
 >
 > Overall, I was pleased to see a huge Tesla coil on TV but I was sorely
 > disappointed with the quality of the program. Hate to sound like an
 > old geezer at age 21, but this kind of crap is the reason America's
 > children don't pay attention to science and technology these days.
 > Society tells them the details aren't important and they don't have to
 > understand it or know anything about it.
 >
 > -------------------------------------------------
 > Mike Poulton
 > MTP Technologies
 > mpoulton-at-mtptech-dot-com
 > KC0LLX (70cm AM ATV, 33cm/12cm FM ATV, Omaha, NE)
 >
 >
 >