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Re: question on safety
Original poster: "Barton B. Anderson" <bartb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Hi Michael,
Good question! First, it is NOT safe to touch any of the primary
components until power is removed form the coil and the tank
capacitor has been discharged (and for complete safety, shorted
across the cap ends with a wire). Whenever my coils are not in use, I
keep a shorting wire across the tank cap.
Yes, less 30mA is enough to be fatal. But, now consider a fully
charged Tesla Capacitor and the possible discharge current.
Instantaneous Current = Vp * sqrt(Cp/Lp).
Putting some of your coils numbers to this (with an approximate Lp):
[8000*sqrt(2)] * sqrt(.01uF/20uH) = 252.98 Peak Amps!!!
That should say it all. Even after power has been removed, in the
event that the caps didn't bleed down and were storing a charge, you
or someone else could be seriously hurt or worse, electrocuted.
Take care,
Bart
Tesla list wrote:
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