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Registered Member #3908
Joined: Tue May 24 2011, 09:40PM
Location: Gilbert, Arizona USA
Posts: 68
Appears you've wisely ditched the high-side driver, and adopted the GDT. And that appears to be a repackaged UD2 inside the black box on the Indiegogo page.
I didn't intend to pee on your campfire, But: Are you protecting yourself with a product liability policy? An LLC only succeeds to limit your product liability if your underwriter has full disclosure of your business manufacturing a complete high voltage apparatus for sale to consumers. These are not custom systems built for professional events. Product liability underwriting can be expensive. There are some breaks if you're a registered PE with an IEEE membership. Just hiring a PE under contract isn't enough.
I only bring this up because historically -Tesla Coils were constructed by individuals who possessed enough knowledge of the device to understand the inherent dangers (and mitigated it appropriately). Or took responsibility for whatever might have happened. You're now offering a complete packaged system (medium size) that can be purchased by any n00b off the street who may have little or no understanding of the dangers involved. It's much different than sales of individual parts that must assembled into a system.
I'm guessing you have already looked into this. Jeff
Registered Member #15
Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 01:11PM
Location:
Posts: 3068
nixie wrote ...
Appears you've wisely ditched the high-side driver, and adopted the GDT. And that appears to be a repackaged UD2 inside the black box on the Indiegogo page.
I didn't intend to pee on your campfire, But: Are you protecting yourself with a product liability policy? An LLC only succeeds to limit your product liability if your underwriter has full disclosure of your business manufacturing a complete high voltage apparatus for sale to consumers. These are not custom systems built for professional events. Product liability underwriting can be expensive. There are some breaks if you're a registered PE with an IEEE membership. Just hiring a PE under contract isn't enough.
I only bring this up because historically -Tesla Coils were constructed by individuals who possessed enough knowledge of the device to understand the inherent dangers (and mitigated it appropriately). Or took responsibility for whatever might have happened. You're now offering a complete packaged system (medium size) that can be purchased by any n00b off the street who may have little or no understanding of the dangers involved. It's much different than sales of individual parts that must assembled into a system.
I'm guessing you have already looked into this. Jeff
Hi Jeff. Thank you for your comments. Yes, we have abandoned the high-side driver scheme for quite a few many years. Our new advanced controller is a CPLD based driver that includes such features as sequencing of the DC bus power supply, UVLO of the high current gate drive section, and optically isolated fault / control communication, to name a few, which connects with our intelligent power distribution board to control start-up, inrush, bleed, and crowbar functions.
We do have a full product liability insurance for the products we sell. It is quite expensive, and the primary reason we don't sell completed units to "consumers" and the general public - our insurance only allows us to offer our products as kits or bare components.
The Plasmasonic in a complete system which is also offered in kit form, although we do have a higher tier level of completed systems for professionals. Our intended market for this system is for educational (schools / universities) and commercial use only. We will not sell this product to anyone off the street or n00bs as you call them. It is intended for the professional market only. All the pledges through our fundraising campaign here are professionals and/or pre-approved highly experienced Tesla amateurs.
This is the primary reason we haven't had as many pledges. We have turned quite a few pledges down during the fund raising campaign.
But again, thank you for your comments. They are all valid and I appreciate them. We do have a product liability lawyer on our team that has been working with us for the past few years on many different aspects of liability to ensure we are taking the proper steps regarding product liability on our path forward.
Registered Member #30
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706
For the record I think this is a whole lot better done and less of a liability nightmare than the MIT OneTesla was. Eastern Voltage has been selling Tesla coil kits for years and he is still in business and not in jail, so he must be doing something right.
Registered Member #3908
Joined: Tue May 24 2011, 09:40PM
Location: Gilbert, Arizona USA
Posts: 68
EasternVoltageResearch wrote ...
We do have a full product liability insurance for the products we sell. It is quite expensive, and the primary reason we don't sell completed units to "consumers" and the general public - our insurance only allows us to offer our products as kits or bare components.
The Plasmasonic in a complete system which is also offered in kit form, although we do have a higher tier level of completed systems for professionals. Our intended market for this system is for educational (schools / universities) and commercial use only. We will not sell this product to anyone off the street or n00bs as you call them. It is intended for the professional market only. All the pledges through our fundraising campaign here are professionals and/or pre-approved highly experienced Tesla amateurs.
This is the primary reason we haven't had as many pledges. We have turned quite a few pledges down during the fund raising campaign.
I see you've created the FAQ content on your campaign to reflect what you posted in your response...
Registered Member #3943
Joined: Sun Jun 12 2011, 05:24PM
Location: The Shire, UK
Posts: 552
Sorry it is a bit late in the game but I just donated becuase you guys have been so good to us here on 4hv.
In the past you've sent me some cores for gate drive transformers (which work great!) and a beta marx generator kit. So here is a little something back.
Registered Member #15
Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 01:11PM
Location:
Posts: 3068
Alex - Thank you so much. Every little bit helps! And as we stated before, we will contribute $5 to 4HV for every contribution we get from 4HV.
Jeff - Yes. Thanks for the the response. I was a bit behind in the FAQ section, so had some time this weekend to finally finish it and get it updated.
Also, if you or anyone else has any experience with liability / insurance, i'd love to hear about your own experiences / contacts. We are always looking for advice / recommendations in this matter, as it is such a complex field.
Registered Member #3943
Joined: Sun Jun 12 2011, 05:24PM
Location: The Shire, UK
Posts: 552
EasternVoltageResearch wrote ...
Also, if you or anyone else has any experience with liability / insurance, i'd love to hear about your own experiences / contacts. We are always looking for advice / recommendations in this matter, as it is such a complex field.
How about RFI? as Ofcom (the UK's communication's regulator) and *some* HAM's have been known to be quite hostile towards anything that interferes with radio and phone lines. Openreach even have a department dedicated to these sorts of issues:
BT REIN Engineers. BT Openreach will sometimes get involved in attempting to trace severe REIN problems. Cases such as these require a specialised REIN engineer to diagnose and locate. Often REIN will fall outside BTs remit and they dont get involved as most culprits of REIN are in the home or neighbouring property.
REIN engineers may use a 444B in conjuction with a MW radio to help them locate the source of the REIN. It must be stressed that not all engineers will have access to this equipment.
So a tesla coil affecting a whole area's TV/radio etc will probably attract some unwanted attention. Even the small 100w coil I built was enough to jam radio signals over a decent range.
You guys have probably thought of this already but I thought I would throw that in there.
Registered Member #15
Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 01:11PM
Location:
Posts: 3068
Hi Alex,
Very good points. As this is still offered as a kit (albeit a high level one), it is still the responsibility of the end user to ensure that all applicable laws regarding RF emission, etc... (FCC, Ofcom, etc...) are being complied too.
Registered Member #15
Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 01:11PM
Location:
Posts: 3068
Just some updates: Received some additional prototype CT transformers. These came out really nice and work equally well. We will be offering these for sale individually as well.
Because if everyone hates winding cores as much as I do, they're going to love these!
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