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Tesla coil in the rain

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Martin King

Sat Aug 14 2010, 07:02PM

Registered Member #3040 Joined: Tue Jul 27 2010, 03:15PM
Location: South of London. UK
Posts: 237

Reaching wrote ...

Just try it out. that would give you the only realistic answer. everything else are just presumptions.

That is the conclusion I've come to in the absence of anyone else having done it.

Reaching wrote ...

i think, when the coil produces an ground arc, the wet ground can cause the current to travel some distance, to a person nearby for example.. very dangerous in my opinion.

This has been mentioned although I find it hard to believe that a ground mesh around the coil would fail to stop that

radiotech

Sat Aug 14 2010, 09:30PM

Registered Member #2463 Joined: Wed Nov 11 2009, 03:49AM
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Posts: 1546

"That is the conclusion I've come to in the absence of anyone else having done it.
"

Tesla himself describes effects of ground currents, measurements, and in particular changes in the arc when it does enter the earth and some causation of shortwaves...

(Colorado Springs Notes 1899-1900) touched on throughout the text

The mesh is a good idea because the streamers will not get to the earth but rather back to coil return circuit. Leave the ground mesh off in a TV set or a 100 kW precipitator- same result all hell breaks loose.

There are two issues: Streamers going to dry earth
and streamers going to wet earth. To see how these work,
forget the mesh. ( Tesla also mentioned that horses standing around were affected during tests) Keep that in mind if your shows hit rodeo circuits.

If it is a show situation, the ground streamers may just add some dimension that makes it better.

Buried telephone cable may use a metal drain wire in the trench since lightning had been found to reach down and find them.

Martin King

Sat Aug 14 2010, 11:25PM

Registered Member #3040 Joined: Tue Jul 27 2010, 03:15PM
Location: South of London. UK
Posts: 237

Thanks for the comments.

radiotech wrote ...

Keep that in mind if your shows hit rodeo circuits.

We can't/don't do shows near livestock anyway (fireworks) and we very rarely do shows in the US. JOOI this is one of our bigger shows :-

The theme of the show is risk

Matt Edwards

Sat Aug 21 2010, 03:23PM

Registered Member #2838 Joined: Fri Apr 30 2010, 07:55PM
Location: tehachapi, CA
Posts: 333

If you decide to do this (avoiding the above stated possible dangers) PLEASE make a video for all of us!

Martin King

Sat Aug 21 2010, 04:36PM

Registered Member #3040 Joined: Tue Jul 27 2010, 03:15PM
Location: South of London. UK
Posts: 237

Oidium45 wrote ...

PLEASE make a video for all of us!

Of course

It'll be a way off yet, just starting on the secondary today.

Martin.

Dr. Drone

Sat Aug 21 2010, 05:03PM

Registered Member #290 Joined: Mon Mar 06 2006, 08:24PM
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Posts: 1673

hvguy

Sun Aug 22 2010, 09:41PM

Registered Member #289 Joined: Mon Mar 06 2006, 10:45AM
Location: Conroe, TX
Posts: 154

Running a TC in the rain is not nearly as exciting as it seems. Some years back my friend Justin and I ran our 12" coil in the rain. We hadn't indented to do so, but the coil setup took several hours and it started raining shortly after we had it running so we decided to keep going and see what happens. Water was FLOWING down the secondary while the coil was making ~10' arcs with no noticeable effect. After about a minute of run time in heavy rain enough water accumulated on the RSG base plate to cause a 60Hz flash over, which promptly set some wiring on fire and ended our run. The next morning we dried the coil out, repaired the wire and burn mark, and it was back up and running. We tried flowing water through the toroid by propping a hose up on a ladder and aiming the water through our mesh toroid. It went in one end and out the other but the arc completely ignored the water, acting no differently than it would if it had not been there.

Bottom line, it was not anything like we expected. If you do choose to test this make sure the primary circuit is enclosed

Martin King

Sun Aug 22 2010, 10:35PM

Registered Member #3040 Joined: Tue Jul 27 2010, 03:15PM
Location: South of London. UK
Posts: 237

Thanks Hvguy, just to clarify the idea isn't to intentionally run the coil in the rain it's more of a "the show must go on" thing and yes the intention is to weatherproof the coils (as well as everything else).

RayeR

Sun Aug 29 2010, 08:26PM

Registered Member #333 Joined: Mon Mar 20 2006, 06:02PM
Location: Czech Republic
Posts: 45

BTW I think that rain water conductivity is very low, its demineralized like during distillation process. So it can affect RF rather due to high permitivity.

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