It’s actually quite interesting to look at the breakout patterns up close, almost like a spirograph…

OK, it had to happen eventually!

Last night I performed the flu-tube test on our coil to see if we had it
tuned at the fundamental frequency - while I was waving the tube up and down
the secondary some sparks jumped and touched the metal end of the tube. I
got a rather unpleasant tingle in my forearm, but nothing more. I was
holding the glass part of the tube.

I asked the guys on the Tesla Coil Mailing List

“Exactly how bad for my health was it?”

Steve,

that’s the million dollar question! There is a guy who does shows by sitting
on top of a tesla coil, the list members probably know of these guys, I
think we are all waiting to see what happens as I understand he has been
doing it some years…

Its a old topic… in theory skin dept isn’t enough to allow the current to
actually pass into your body. So in effect it flows within your skin missing
your internals! though ….. I think the general accepted idea is not to do
it as we don’t really know the long term effects on the body. I for one
think passing high voltage over your skin is a bad idea anyway… Though
people can do far worse things to their skin….

Though some guys do far worse. If it makes you feel any better, when I first
built my coil (over 10 years ago) I had an arc strike me for some time
before I even noticed it and my leg hasn’t fallen off yet…

It possible you could get more static shocks from walking over carpets then
you will get zapped from a tesla coil.. and how many people worry about that
?

my 2C worth….

Chris

Success! I cleaned out most of the burning from the inside of the coil. Then mounted the toroid back on the secondary with a nylon bolt.

I’m also pleased to report that the Tesla tuner I built was pretty much spot on with the tap point of the primary coil…

Well, last night I found out why our Tesla coil isn’t delivering the performance I would expect. I opened up the secondary coil and found carbon scoring on the inside of the coil. Looks like the coil has been discharging internally.

We need to remove the metal bolt at the top and find a way to use a nylon one.

Jennette Fulda is a fellow resident of the Stutz building. She approached me some time ago to take some pictures for a book she was writing on the incredible weight loss journey she’s been on…

The thing I remember most was when the publisher sent me the contract, it was titled “Half-Assed Photography Contract” (It’s more common than you think)

New York Times Article

I recently received a copy from the publishers, and from Jennette herself - thanks!
I urge you to go check out her blog, it makes for some entertaining reading!
PastaQueen

Now go out and buy the book!!

Last year I covered a wedding at the Sanctuary in Zionsville, IN. The marketing staff got in touch recently to ask permission to use some of the images on the Sanctuary website.

http://www.nanoel.com/page_detail.php?page_id=78&page_type=gallery

I’m in there amongst some of the other images.
It was a great venue, always nice to be able to shoot natural light at a wedding.

…and it wouldn’t be a laser show without the liquid sky effect.

It’s funny, but when I first heard about “blogging” I couldn’t really grasp what all the fuss was about. The notion that you should post entries on the web that really should be kept in your private diary seemed rather strange.

I think that there is a major flaw in the whole blogging concept, (for most of us): When lots of stuff is happening in your life, you don’t have time to update your blog, then when things calm down a bit, there’s nothing to write…

Some people actually seem to make money doing this too - although I’m not sure how many people make liveable income from AdSense et al. I’ve always viewed it as something that produces “bonus” money, but no steady stream of income.

So anyway, I thought it was about time that I used my blog a bit more responsibly and actually posted things that might be of use to the rest of the human race…

We had a day long photoshoot with Sarah Fisher on Monday.

It was a long day and quite gruelling, but Sarah was an absolute trooper, very easy to work with, and didn’t complain once…

Hair and makeup by Style Salon in Broad Ripple - Sak’s 5th Avenue provided the clothes and shoes.

I missed the first transmission of Across Indiana this week. It was on Monday night with the Laser Harp feature being right at the end.

Apparently it will be shown again on Saturday evening at 6:30pm.

http://www.wfyi.org/acrossIndiana.asp
Episode 1811