[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: question on safety
Original poster: "Mike" <mike.marcum@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Odds are it will kill you. The 30mA figure doesn't apply when it's
used to charge a capacitor, you then take the discharge current of
the cap, which can be 100A even on small coils. Bad to touch the
primary, even worse to stick your finger in the gap where there's
only primary inductance to limit the current. If it doesn't kill it
will probably vaporize chunks off your finger.
Mike
----- Original Message ----- From: "Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, April 13, 2006 2:38 PM
Subject: question on safety
Original poster: "Michael Ong" <omenowner725@xxxxxxxxxxx>
hello, today i was presenting my tesla coil for my school project,
and i got asked if it was fatal to touch the spark gap or charged
caps. I honestly didn't know the answer to this question and was
wondering if anyone could answer it for me. my coil runs at 8kv 30ma
with a cap size of .01uf and i have always just assumed it was
unsafe to touch and in any case will give you a burn, who cares if
it will kill you. the chart on my class room says that 30ma is close
to "possibly" fatal, but it seems like there are a lot of factors
like the voltage, the path it takes through your body, your body
resistance at the time, and the climate conditions that plan key
roles. anyways i was wondering if there was an easy answer to this
question of how many amps/volts will kill you or if there are just
too many factors that are undetermined to correctly give an answer.
thanks again for the help
-Michael