Rotary gap safety - RE: spark gap muffler?

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Terry Fritz" <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>

Hi Chris, and Gregory,

I saw a video once of one of Greg Leyh's big rotary gaps coming apart at an
SRL show.  The parts breaking away (a bearing got a primary arc and
suddenly welded solid I think) hit that shield like a ton of bricks!!
Heavy steel plate, well bolted down, not only to control parts but to
literally control an "explosion" is needed!  If the rotor comes off, or
worse, cracks away so it suddenly becomes super unbalanced, you will have a
monster on your hands really fast!!

I looked at:
http://www.srl-dot-org/
but they don't have a video of it up.  It was pretty cool!!  

This is obviously a much larger concern for a publicly demonstrated coil
with an audience filled with lawyers...  A daily inspection probably with a
check sheet is a good idea to insure consistent safety.  Small low RPM
rotors are far more tame but I always position the rotor so I am not in the
plane of the disk incase something flies off and I usually have Shields
unless I am fiddling with them :-))  

Cheers,

	Terry


At 03:44 PM 5/25/2001 -0400, you wrote:
>>
>>"Bombproof" is a rock clibming term for an anchor that can withstand a
>>continuous 3000Lbs load. I'm a 150 lbs wimp so that kind of safety factor is
>>a good, reliable thing that I never have to worry about. That's what I want
>>in a rotor shield. In the event of a electrode collision, rotor failure, or
>>other catastophic failure I want to know that no matter how big the noise,
>>nothing is coming out of that box.
>>
>>Just imagine what happens if we loose an electrode and take out someones 12
>>year old. 1/4" diamondplate is NOT unreasonable for the blast shield. I want
>>something that would reasonably stop a 30/30 shell.
>
>Armoring for a 30-30 is overkill. Soft point or FMJ? :) But, hey, if 
>you have some 3/8" steel plate around...
>
>best luck,
>Gregory
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