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Re: Getting brave./burnt flesh
Original poster: "Dr. John W. Gudenas" <comsciprof@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
David
A VTTC at a lower frequency than you are operating at will be
painful if you let it arc to you.
However in your case, welcome to the world of RF burns. The "burning
flesh" is indeed burnt flesh. Not good.
At RF frequencies your nerves don't fire at that instant, however
keep the arc going as in a CW mode and you will suffer major damage,
and pain from the burn.
Obviously "burnt flesh" is a common sense indicator that should not
be ignored. RF burns heal slowly too.
When you hold a metal rod tight in your hand and pull an arc to it,
your body in effect behaves as a loaded antenna.
This is a dangerous scenario. If you were to touch, with your other
hand, most any metal object that can accept load or is near ground,
you will get another
nasty RF burn. Your shoes can break down too, depending on what you
are standing on.
Your coil has sufficient power to cause major nerve damage. If you
want to pull arcs use a grounded metal rod attached to
a nice long insulator, like PVC pipe.
Your questions are quite appropriate as you observed an effect that
clearly deserves an answer. The only "flaming" you will incur
are RF burns if you continue to smell burnt flesh.
Play it safe!
John
John W. Gudenas, Ph.D.
Professor of Computer Science
On Oct 11, 2006, at 10:09 PM, Tesla list wrote:
Original poster: "David Rieben" <drieben@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Hey all,
While we're on this subject, I may as well open myself up
for some "flaming". I was recently inspired by Cameron
Prince's VTTC, based upon Steve Ward's design. Came-
ron's 3 ft. swords just got the best of me and I just had to
build one myself ;^) Anyway, one thing that I have disco-
vered about VTTCs is that the output sparks of these type
of coils truly has virtually no sensation to the skin if the sparks
are allowed to strike a metal object that's held in the hand.
Even if the sparks are allowed to strike the skin directly,
there's only a mild burning "pin-prick" sensation at the
point of contact. This is very unlike spark gap driven coils
in that the ouput sparks from SG driven coils is indeed
painful (I know this from first hand experience).
I'm sure that the general consensus among the list would
still be to not let the VTTC sparks hit you either even
though they are virtually painless to the touch. I've heard
of people having a deep, dull soreness in the muscles and
joints days after exposing theirselves to the "painless" out-
put sparks of vacuum tube or solid state coils. I have not
noticed this but I have noticed that if I do let the sparks
hit the skin of my hands directly, I can smell burnt flesh
on the part of my hand that I allow the sparks to hit for
a little while afterwards. Of course, this isn't an issue if I
draw the sparks to a metal rod held in my hand and do
not allow the sparks to strike my hand directly. In this
case, there is almost no sensation whatsoever and I do
not smell burnt flesh on my hands afterwards. BTW,
I'm drawing 20 amps at 120 volt input, so there is
plenty of power.
What's the experience of others out there regarding
the output of solid state or solid state coils and taking the
output into their hands?
David Rieben
Snip ... Snip ... Snip