Re: living room lights don't work!!

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

Original poster: Kurt Schraner <k.schraner-at-datacomm.ch> 

Gary,

I had a possibly comparable event, please see below:

Tesla list schrieb:
>Original poster: "Lau, Gary" <gary.lau-at-hp-dot-com>
>What an excellent idea/requirement!  How many times have I been in my
>garage running my coil, maxing out the mains and tripping the breaker,
>plunging the garage into total darkness!
>Back to the topic at hand, I was recently running my 15/60 NST-power
>coil in the garage when a streamer hit an operating overhead
>incandescent fixture.  It blew the 100W bulb!  I do not recall if it
>also tripped the breaker, as I was doing a lot of breaker-tripping that
>night.  I assume the original poster has checked for a bad bulb, but I'm
>at a loss to explain how a streamer can take out an incandescent bulb.
>This would suggest that a streamer strike to one's body could be deadly!

...it's long ago, but I had a strike to an operating 60W incandescent bulb 
from my 8" twin, operating at about 3kW. The breaker tripped, and the bulb 
was gone. Closer inspection showed carbon tracking in the Edison socket, 
and on the bulb socket. The spark had probably initiated a short on the 
230V/50Hz line, not before burning the filament. Well, it's probably not a 
satisfactory explanantion of this burning, but at least, the spark had not 
to do "all the job" alone ;-)

After that event, I installed my insulating "spark breaker" shield, and had 
no more problems. Shield and bulb can be seen under:

http://home.datacomm.ch/k.schraner/schirm.jpg

Regrettably (missing a digital camera), I made no diagnostic pic's of the 
burnt socket and bulb at that time (~1999).

Kurt
>Gary Lau
>MA, USA