It's so sad to hear of this fatal mishap involving your son's friend and it
is a stark reminder of the inherent and very real danger associated with our
hobby of choice. It would behoove even us more experienced "old salts" of
this hobby to take heed as well and to make sure that we always exercize
extreme caution when we are working/playing with the potentially lethal
voltages that are often present when running these types of circuits.
I recall having a 'near miss' with an energized pole pig a number of years
ago and it really scared me. I had energized it to do the typical arc
drawing and when I had finished drawing said arcs, I had neglected to
de-energize the transformer and was moving around dangerously close to the
HV bushings, having carelessly forgotten they were still energized!
Fortunately, I did not approach them close enough to get zapped, but once I
realized what I had done, it really shook me up to think that I had allowed
myself to get that careless around an energized pole transformer (and with
other people nearby)! It did teach me a lesson to ALWAYS be very vigilant,
methodical and extremely cautious when working (or playing) with high
voltage and I can't recall any such additional near misses since that
incident. Carelessness can literally get you killed!
Be safe,
David
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve White" <steve.white1@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "Tesla Coil List" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, April 08, 2018 10:37 PM
Subject: [TCML] Deadly MOTs (warning)
This message is mostly for newbies and other people inexperienced with
high voltage, especially MOTs.
We often read warnings about the potential dangers of MOTs but I have
never heard of anyone actually being killed by a MOT. That has now
changed. About 2 weeks ago a friend of my son was killed by a MOT. He was
30 years old. I don't know all of the details but he had made some sort of
wood-burning tool that he was using to burn images on to wood as art.
Somehow he touched the HV terminal of the MOT and it instantly killed him.
I had no idea he was trying to do such a thing because unfortunately he
never consulted me about it. I have known him since he was a teenager and
I can tell you that he knew nothing about HV or even electricity. He
probably got this idea from the internet. MOTs can be put to many useful
purposes (I use them myself) but you must know what you are doing and
understand the danger.
So the lesson to take from this is to heed the warnings about the safe use
of MOTs in HV projects. These warnings are real.
Steve
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