We managed to get some footage of the tesla coil running last night, just before we switched over from a static gap to a rotary gap. It looks like the rotor is not quite in sync with the up and down swing of the AC line voltage. So that’s the next thing to fix.

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…