<< I ran a "skunk zapper" electric fence for
several years which was powered by a 9 kV, 60 ma NST. >> PS: A word of caution about using a NST for a "fence charger"! Common practice...but bad idea. IT'S LEATHAL, not only to small animals, but humans too! Real fence chargers send out a high voltage microAmp pulse about once a second, which smarts like hell, but won't cause you to go into cardiac arrest or become unable to let go of a 'hot' fence wire. They will also not produce a hot enough or long enough duration spark to burn you or set the grass/weeds/house on fire when they finally get that tall.However, your NST _WILL_ keep the skunks out!! :)Tony Greer Special Effects Neon Lubbock, Texas"
Absolutely aware of ALL the dangers of that setup and went to great lengths to make it a LITTLE less lethal. The incentive for creating it was the night that skunks destroyed a newly sodded back yard in which we'd just invested over a kilobuck. Over the year it ran we got at least a dozen skunks and possums, and the occasional rat which somehow stood up on its rear legs to be able to reach the bottom wire. Had the equivalent of a GFI which opened the AC line to the NST and lighted a 100 watt bulb whenever there was more than 10 ma of current for over 10 seconds. That was installed the first night a skunk fried to a crisp and stunk up the whole neighborhood with the horrid combination of skunk odor and that of burned flesh and hair. The light bulb was visible from the window of our bedroom and my wife and I worked up a routine. Whenever the light went on [skunks and possums never attacked the yard during the daytime even if they sometimes came sniffing around] we roared downstairs. Wife held a plastic trash bag while I picked up the corpse with a plastic shopping back over each hand and dropped it into the trash bag. Always tied the bag up tight, bagged it again, and set out for the humane society to pick up the next morning. One morning someone picked up the bag and carried it away before the humane society guy got there. Always wanted to know what happened when whoever did it opened the bag. That same transformer now sits in the attic of the garage powering my small coil which I use to give demos to interested visitors. No evidence of distress but it may die the next time I fire it up. Ed _______________________________________________ Tesla mailing list Tesla@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.pupman.com/mailman/listinfo/tesla