Re: living room lights don't work!!

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

Original poster: "Malcolm Watts" <m.j.watts-at-massey.ac.nz> 

Hi Kurt, Gary,
                I have a rare and lucky photo of a streamer from one
of my coils connecting with an anglepoise lamp with a shower of
sparks streaming down from the lamp. The lamp survived (and came on
briefly) but the lampholder and switch were toast. Some weeks later,
a strike to a drillpress frame took out some old insulation in a
drillpress on the opposite side of the room. The final straw was the
mysterious demise of a hub port, the hub being several rooms away but
the cabling being somewhere in the ceiling. As a standard precaution,
all computer cables in the room were unplugged whenever I ran the
coil or that may have smoked as well. The demise of the hub port was
the final hint that running the coil in the back room of the workshop
wasn't a great idea.

Malcolm

On 12 Jun 2004, at 10:42, Tesla list wrote:

 > 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
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >