RE: Big Insulator

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: "Godfrey Loudner" <ggreen@xxxxxxxx>

Once I was salvaging the hard rubber insulator parts of seven arrestors.
The outer sides of the arrestors were made of hard rubber. The six I got
apart were gray colored; but despite my best efforts, I could not even
turn the bolts on the arrestor with black rubber. Finally I tossed the
black arrestor into a barrel of burning wood. After watching it getting
scorched, I had a sense that perhaps pressure was building up inside the
tightly bound thing and went back inside. After about ten minutes I
heard a loud report. A bolt on one end apparently shot through the fire
barrel and a 3/4 inch piece of plywood resting against a pile of bricks.
I think something bad would have happened if I were hit by the
projectile. So I believe its not good to be apply heat to these
arrestors.

Godfrey Loudner

I took apart a 3kV arrestor a coupla months ago out of
curiosity. Among the inner workings was a .22 blank. Presumably at a
certain voltage level the MOV core conducts, and at a certain current
level the blank fires and blows the thing apart to open the circuit.

Phil LaBudde