RE: kVA Effects on Discovery Channel

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

Original poster: "BrianB" <brianb-at-antelecom-dot-net> 

Harold/Mike/all,

Yes, I was there. I was responsible for the kVA gag working and for
safety...

As you suspect, there was a very small squib in the base of the phone.
Their thought was to make it smoke the way the victim reported (the
producers were actually trying to accurately reproduce that strike).

The damage to the wall, phone jack, the fire in the handset, the burning
wires, and the scorched dummy's hand was real (i.e. caused by the Tesla
Coil). The dummy's shoulder also caught fire but I ran in to put it out
when the producer yelled "Fire on the Set" (not something you ignore
when you are responsible for safety). The host then ran in and used the
big bottle of CO2 to finish extinguishing the embers (which is what you
saw on TV).

All in all the people involved in this show were a good bunch of folks
and fun to work with (most were TV production people and only a couple
had any science background).

It's important to note that they are working within very tight budgets
and short timelines and at the end of the day they have an
"Entertainment" product to turn out. Most of what they re-produce or
test is done in a day or two when to do it in a truly "scientific" manor
would require months of analysis and ultimately not gain them better
ratings (although it would be interesting to most of us on this list).

I hope this gives a bit of insight behind the scenes. Now back to
lurking and working on my Trimix tests...

Regards,
Brian B.

-----Original Message-----
From: Tesla list [mailto:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 7:26 PM
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: kVA Effects on Discovery Channel

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)
  >
  >
  >

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