Re: fire safety

[Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>]

Hi David,

	Many thanks for your great thoughts on this!  Tesla coils can and have
started a number of fires.  The ones "I" have heard of have all been easily
taken care of, but he possibility for really burning one's house down, or
worse, is very real!  An arc can easily find it's way to drywall screws and
other metal in the wall that can concentrate an arc into a hot spot.  Thus
starting a smoldering area deep inside the walls.  Sometime later, you
could suddenly have a serious fire when you didn't expect it.  An arc to
the AC line can ignite an electrical fire in outlets and fuse panels that
can cause a real problem very quickly too.  It is best to have a grounded
rod or something to absorb arcs safely rather than just randomly hitting
the woodwork...

	Of course, one should rid the garage of gas cans, and other flammables
that a streamer could hit before powering up.  MMCs have helped to
eliminate the exploding oil cap problem, but one should always be ready for
something seriously going wrong "really quick".  A fire extinguisher and a
fast way "out of the area" are always very important!!  

	Before using any fire extinguishers, one must be sure to remove all power
to the coil and be careful of charge caps and such (glad were all using
drain resistors ;-)).  I recommend looking and thinking through the bad
situations BEFORE one starts.  Then you can have a little idea what to do
incase of mishaps.  Having even a slight idea of a "plan" can really help.
Of course, never do anything 'stupid'.  If something really does go very
bad, get away and save yourself from the danger.  Garages get burnt out and
repaired all the time.  It is far better to "run away and then think"
rather than do something "fast without thinking"...  Of course, if you
forgot to turn the power off the your pole pig before you ran, be sure to
let the fire department know that before they turn the water on it!

Neal Armstrong (I think) was once asked what he would do if his space craft
was going to blow up in ten seconds.  He replied "I would THINK for nine
seconds, and THEN act..."

Cheers,

	Terry


At 05:48 PM 8/23/00 -0400, you wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>We all obviously know the electrocution hazards in dealing with
>Tesla circuits, but as a professional firefighter in my real job, it
>sometimes seems that we tend to downplay the true fire danger
>involved with this hobby, especially w/ high powered Tesla coils.
>The problem I've noticed in firing my large 10 ft sparker in my 
>claustrophobic 12 ft x 20 ft wood frame shop is that sometimes
>I will notice a carbonized spot here and there on the outer wood
>siding of the shop building. I fear this may not be noticable when 
>it is actually burned by one of the streamers but slowly smolders
>till the burnt spot appears on the surface. The fire hazard is obvi-
>ous. Fire beneath the outer surface gives firefighters the biggest 
>problems with extinguishing structure fires and if all possible sources 
>of subsurface smoldering debris are not removed, there will likely
>be a re-kindle some time after the fire dept. has left the fire scene
>(sometimes several hours later!!)
>
>Just wanted to remind everyone of fire safety as well as electri-
>cal safety. I do keep a charged fire extinguisher in my shop to
>quickly extinguish a flash fire, but if a streamer ignites the wood
>internally, it may not be noticed till it breaks out some time later
>and if it continues to burn unchecked it may be too late  to
>extinguish (without calling me!) when it does become noticable
>and gains unlimited access to the O2 of the open air! And I'd do
>good to heed my own advice on this matter, too. Maybe someday
>I can build a nice tall metal building for my coiling,
>
>My professional $.02 worth,
>Be Safe----- David Rieben
>