[SEL] Early Switchboard Meters and Switchgear

[John Culp]

Many years ago, when I was in high school, I read Martin Uman's book 
"Lightning." (It was a rather unique scholarly work on lightning. He's 
written several since, and about 3-4 years ago I looked him up, found 
he was still kicking and corresponded with him by E-mail.) One thing I 
recall from it was in the chapter on ball lightning, that submariners 
had occasionally reported fireballs produced when  breakers were opened 
in their high-current 600VDC (IIRC) circuits, surviving and moving 
around for several seconds. Wouldn't you love to have those things 
rolling around the floor while you were undersea in a sub? There's not 
a lot of room in those things.

John

On Jul 16, 2005, at 10:22 PM, Tod Engine wrote:

> All you need are massive contacts, lots of asbestos shielding and arc 
> extinguishers!  The fun of DC is the arcing, sparks, flashes and loud 
> noises!


John Culp
Bristol, Tennessee, USA