[TCML] RE: Building a discharge 'wand'

["Lau, Gary" <Gary.Lau@xxxxxx>]

This wand is just being used as a target for top load discharges to arc to?  I've never heard that a resistor was needed.  Why can't the tip of the wand be directly grounded (to RF ground!)?

You're going to find it hard to locate a resistor that is rated to hold off ~300kV.  But the good news is, you don't need one.

Or - is this wand used to discharge the tank capacitor prior to touching it?  Since you already have 10M bleeder resistors on each cap, they'll automatically discharge each one without further intervention.  And even if one of them should fail, the hazard would be limited to that one affected cap, so probably not a big deal, especially since the NST would normally discharge that too.

Regards, Gary Lau
MA, USA

> -----Original Message-----
> From: tesla-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:tesla-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On
> Behalf Of Stephen J. Hobley
> Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2008 12:01 PM
> To: Tesla Coil Mailing List
> Subject: [TCML] Building a discharge 'wand'
>
> I just noticed that the 400K power resistor on the safety wand is no longer
> functional. No sign of arcing, or heat, just not conducting at all.
>
> Can someone point me to the correct power resistors to use for this application. I
> bought the biggest resistors I could find at Fry's, but it seems that they're not beefy
> enough.
>
> All the *really* big resistors were around 100 Ohms.
>
> Steve

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