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Registered Member #3766
Joined: Sun Mar 20 2011, 05:39AM
Location:
Posts: 624
Alright, I'm planning on building a tesla coil soon with a 15KV 30mA NST (450 W), and using a ~900 turn 4" secondary, simple spark gap design. I'm going to use this thread as I run into questions in the future, but for right now my question is, how dangerous will it be? I'm expecting about 3 foot sparks, and if one was to accidentally stray too close to it, and one jumped to a person, would it be deadly? I'm asking because my dads entire premise is "if it can kill you you can't build it"
Registered Member #3505
Joined: Sun Dec 12 2010, 06:03AM
Location: Albuquerque NM
Posts: 108
3 foot sparks might be pushing it a bit since the max in a perfect situation would be ~37". Since you are building a SGTC I would highly recommend that you don't allow any one to come close enough to be hit by a stray streamer. Any electrical shock can be fatal so there will be risk of death in building one. Just be smart and operate at a distance and you shouldn't have an issue.
Registered Member #3505
Joined: Sun Dec 12 2010, 06:03AM
Location: Albuquerque NM
Posts: 108
Yes. Kinda. You can normally touch a SSTC arc without dieing, but you are still playing with HV so you can still kill yourself. No matter what you do with any type of Tesla Coil if you are stupid you will kill yourself... Eventually...
Registered Member #3766
Joined: Sun Mar 20 2011, 05:39AM
Location:
Posts: 624
Sounds about right... I think I got a go-ahead on the project, he let me buy the transformer and wire ($100 I'm never getting back , hopefully it pays for itself) Out of curiosity, has anyone on here ever accidentally touched a streamer?
Registered Member #3505
Joined: Sun Dec 12 2010, 06:03AM
Location: Albuquerque NM
Posts: 108
I had a large palmetto bug(South Carolina roach) That kept coming into my garage and one day he "accidentally" touched a streamer on my 15Kv 60ma SGTC and caught on fire...
Registered Member #3885
Joined: Sun May 15 2011, 12:47AM
Location: Newton, Massachusetts, United States
Posts: 94
magnet18 wrote ...
my dads entire premise is "if it can kill you you can't build it"
Forget about how dangerous the streamers can be, the transformer alone can easily kill you if you're not careful and so can the primary capacitor if it's still charged after a run.
Of course, there's absolutely no reason for you to be fiddling around with the primary circuit while it's energized, so that takes care of the danger the transformer poses, and if you put a bleed resistor across your tank capacitor and use a screwdriver to manually short the spark gap each time you need to touch something on the primary side, the capacitor also poses no immediate danger.
Alternately, you could try building a vacuum tube coil as your first project; the streamers are more or less harmless as compared to those from a spark gap coil and you could put the entire oscillator in an enclosure to prevent any contact with the primary side. I built a small 811A VTTC as my first "real" coil in 8th grade and it worked great the first time I turned it on (link).
Registered Member #3766
Joined: Sun Mar 20 2011, 05:39AM
Location:
Posts: 624
Thanks, I'll consider a VTTC, but I think that it looks like a SGTC can make much bigger sparks for cheaper, though I might just be uneducated in the matter.
Registered Member #3114
Joined: Sat Aug 14 2010, 08:33AM
Location:
Posts: 608
I got decent results with a flyback powered SGTC and was obviously able to touch the streamers, it tingled and then burned :) But i have since moved to other projects, such as guitar amplifiers.
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First SGCT, questions
($100 I'm never getting back 
, hopefully it pays for itself)
