On 3/14/2015 8:41 AM, FranK Turner-Smith G3VKI wrote:
"Rambo" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 13 Mar 2015 23:13:33 -0000, "gareth"
wrote:
"Rambo" wrote in message
news On Fri, 13 Mar 2015 15:57:07 -0000, "gareth"
wrote:
Me and a friend made up a capacitor (really a condenser seeing as
the use to which it was put) by rolling up aluminium foil in between
sheets of polythene for his Tesla coil, but the capacitor failed
because
of breakdown in the inevitable air spaces in the tightly-wound wad,
the sparking then causing the polythene to burn and thus result
in a shorting out.

Finally did it with aluminium foil laid between sheets of glass and
we got sparks several feet long from it, using an 11kV pole pig
in reverse as the drive.

OK I'll bite.. for what purpose?

Scientific curiosity

It only takes 200mA to cause a cardiac malfunction, why on eath would
you want to mess about with those sorts of voltages given the off
chance that one of those bolts may choose you as its earth return?

I thought the fatal current was a lot lower than that. 8mA springs to
mind (arm to arm).

I don't remember exactly either, but I'm with you, Frank - it's a lot
lower.

Typical skin resistance is on the order of 50K (which obviously varies a
lot with conditions). But 120V is definitely fatal, even though it
would only result in 2.4ma of current. Even under the best conditions
skin resistance wouldn't be as low as 600 ohms.

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