Earth Trip keeps cutting out

[Nick]

Nasty RF burn to base of my left thumb - came from a mains cable drum that was driving a large Tesla coil.

Spark was about 200kV @ 400kHz - went into my thumb & burnt down to the bone (lowest impedance path to ground), then came out again, hence the two holes.

Smell was grim. Like burnt leather. Hurt like hell & took ages to heal as holes were all the way to the bone. Bone hurt too.

Lesson learnt - using a mains lead on a drum is effectively a choke for the earth at RF, hence my thumb being a cheaper option!

Always uncoil the cable on the drum if driving RF at power...

   

[ppppenguin]

Always uncoil the cable fom the drum if using it at anything over about 30% of its rated current. Can get rather hot.

[Murphyv310]

Always uncoil full stop. Gets you into the habit of doing it right each time.

[Radio Fixer]

Best thing for the pond pump is to use low voltage. Mine is only fed 24V from an indoor transformer. All leakage problems went away. Not sure if you can get low voltage UV filters though, don't have one myself.

Gary