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Encountered issue with parents and high voltage

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Killa-X

Thu Sept 16 2010, 03:59AM

Registered Member #1643 Joined: Mon Aug 18 2008, 06:10PM
Location:
Posts: 1039

If you had a similar experience to parents catching you, you should enjoy this. Â I wanted to express my experience with my fellow forum friends. Â My first real HV vs Parents issue!

To start, a summery of my issue. Â Months ago I got some microwave transformers off eBay because my parents didn't allow me to mess with them. Â For the longest time, since I got them I have openly placed them all over, for painting, etc. They never thought anything if them besides that they are transformers. Â So I finally got the project done, and my teacher is super excited to see, he said I could bring them in. Â So I started testing what best resonance the transformers, 4 capacitors was the best. Â So it makes nice big loud arcs, 93db at 3ft. Â I decided to make a Jacobs ladder, and was the best I got. Â I was very excited to see how cool it looked, seeing the beauty in the arcs surrounded by plasma...

So what ends up happening, is parents hear it upstairs, and get pissed off over the fact how I'm not suppose to be 'doing ladders' because it's a fire hazard...I'm sure many of you younger people had this issue, and probably, like me, laughed hard on the inside, trying not to on the outside.

So, no matter what the outcome of this is, all I can say is that it was one of the fun luniest moments of my life...All I had to say was "Can't wait till I move out soon." honestly...can't wait. Â Annoying pests when it comes to things I love to do.

So, no word yet what is going to happen. Things I was told I'm sure you've all heard.

"Fire hazard to ladder, it will burn the house down!"
"If you burn the house down and sister dies, well be bad parents lettin you do it!"
Etc. It's hard to make a fire when a ladder arcs point to point...not randomly arcing to nothing around it to make a fire. I was told "you promised you wouldn't ladder and you lied" which is a lie because I NEVER make promises, and he never even told me I couldn't...so

Feel free to leave any comments that come to mind...About your own personal experience or perhaps a comment on my experience. Â I know a lot of people here have the issue, and a lot of people hear the phrase "burn the house down".

Thanks all! For all the help and such =)

Any typos, blame my iPod. This was all typed on a iPod touch.

Muttyfutty!

Thu Sept 16 2010, 08:06AM

Registered Member #2915 Joined: Fri Jun 11 2010, 10:41AM
Location: Malaysia!
Posts: 101

Thankfully my father has always been very supportive of my HV projects; Helping me wind the secondary coil and generally helping me out.
Im sorry to hear that your parents aren't as enthusiastic about HV.
My mum, however, is less in to High Voltage and swears loudly when I discharge my capacitors.

She thinks it sounds like a machine gun..

IMHO, Maybe you could spend some time just talking to your dad/mum etc. about the real risks of running a JLadder, possibly
using videos and other material to explain how electricity works. Maybe reach some sort of compromise?
Regards,
Mike

Marko

Thu Sept 16 2010, 01:44PM

Registered Member #89 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 02:40PM
Location: Zadar, Croatia
Posts: 3145

I guess I have an opposite problem, my parents kind of believe that I'm immune to electricity. If I have to replace something on a line voltage they're annyoed if I have to remove fuses for it.

Still they complain if I run TC's in my room and disrupt internet connection or TV picture... but that's mostly it.

Regarding 3 foot mot arcs, I don't think I would run them in my room either. I made too many burn marks already on the floor and carpet, and with your amount of power I can imagine molten metal splashing all around if the arc sits on a same spot of metal for a few s. Do you have a garage, a balcony, or any open space you can run the mots on anyway?

Marko

Killa-X

Thu Sept 16 2010, 02:43PM

Registered Member #1643 Joined: Mon Aug 18 2008, 06:10PM
Location:
Posts: 1039

Ya but because its in a rig, arcs are 7" off tr ground. The only way to hit the floor is to purposely drag the stick into the floor...

I can do it in the garage, but with tesla coils I can't else I'd have to drag many many things out...Scopes, meters, etc

I know many people here have similar experience, which is what I like to hear. Sadly there's not much I can do, teacher is waiting to have me bring them in. At most though I think they are still letting me do it in the garage.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BRHQxjyg6s

Dr. Drone

Thu Sept 16 2010, 04:16PM

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

Conundrum

Thu Sept 16 2010, 07:31PM

Registered Member #96 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4062

my father thinks I once caused an island wide power blackout, because i was "experimenting" with a battery powered ignition coil cascade.
He heard the sparks, and about ten seconds later all the lights went off. Needless to say I got yelled at up until the point it became obvious that the problem was elsewhere (as it happened a lightning strike hit near the substation near the France-Jersey link, which took out our power!)

-A

"Bother" said Pooh, as his parcel was seized by Customs...

Killa-X

Thu Sept 16 2010, 08:02PM

Registered Member #1643 Joined: Mon Aug 18 2008, 06:10PM
Location:
Posts: 1039

Ya...That's the thing. Most people (not everyone) have parents that do related stuff. For example, 80% of people in my electrical class, have parents that are involved with electrical stuff. Electrical engineer, transformer making, electrician, Lab work, etc. My parents dont do anything related. Mother is stay-at-home mom. Father is a truck driver.

So ya. They dont really want to bother learning about the stuff, so whenever i try to explain things, it doesnt get anywhere. Just like how my dad saw my coil running and thought BIG POWER BILL!!! Both me and my teacher tryed to explain that its not, only was using 200W, and he still to this days sees a coil as a super high bill.

Martin King

Thu Sept 16 2010, 09:53PM

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

I'm lucky, my parents have always supported experimentation and independence. I went on holiday abroad on my own as soon as I was 16 and after that travelled to Nepal China Peru etc. etc. on my own. I've had jobs involving wearing body armour, climbing towers, abseiling, high voltage, RF and explosives (not all at the same time

And all they ever say is "be careful". I'm 40 now so I think I've been fairly good at "being careful"

Martin.

Adam Munich

Thu Sept 16 2010, 11:31PM

Registered Member #2893 Joined: Tue Jun 01 2010, 09:25PM
Location: Cali-forn. i. a.
Posts: 2242

My parents don't really care. The only thing they care about is all the mess I make when I'm putting things together.

Hey killa-x, don't you have a pole pig? If your parents don't let you play with MOTs how did you manage that?

GluD

Thu Sept 16 2010, 11:41PM

Registered Member #1221 Joined: Wed Jan 09 2008, 06:17PM
Location: Odense, Denmark
Posts: 196

I got blamed for causing interference on the TV and some time later a lightning hit nearby tripped the relay, which of course, I also got blamed for, theres no limit as to what us g33ks has to stand up to, there just aint no tolerance in socioty anymore. Now I got my own house so I dont have to worry about parents anymore

To counter the famous "burn the house down" problem I just bought a fire extingusher, and kept it around everytime I did some HV, and told my parents that if I screwed up it wouldnt be much of a problem then because I'd just put the fire out right away. But luckily there never came any fires to put out.

Obivously high temperature plasma can be a very real fire hazzard, but the thing just is that unless the person making the plasma somehow get electrocuted or otherwise incapitated, the person would be right there to take appropiate actions to stop the fire. In other words, I'm much more afraid of faults in the wiring in my house then my experiments because I'm sort of "alert" when doing the experiments but a fault in the house wiring can happen at any given time.

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