Police alerted electricity staff, who cut off the deadly high-voltage supply following the accident at the Lancaster Canal, five miles north of Preston, Lancs.
At the grid substation, a step-down transformer is connected across two of the three phases of the high-voltage supply.
The high-voltage supplies for cathode ray tubes often use voltage multipliers with the final-stage smoothing capacitor formed by the interior and exterior aquadag coatings on the CRT itself.
Additional features available on high-voltage supplies can include the ability to reverse the output polarity along with the use of circuit breakers and special connectors intended to minimize arcing and accidental contact with human hands.
For high-voltage supply to large buildings and factories, distribution lines are directly connected to customers' electricity systems.
The fundamental idea for the friction machine as high-voltage supply, using electrostatic influence to charge rotating disk or belt can be traced back to the 17th century or even before (cf. Friction machines History)
Since the EL-8 tubes are kept constantly lit, they don't have to be as bright, so the driving voltage can be lower and a separate high-voltage supply is not needed.
Since there is no reflector, only one high-voltage supply is necessary to cause the tube to oscillate, the voltage must be adjusted to a particular value.
And it is charged through a resistor of at least 100 meg-Ohms so the high-voltage supply can charge the capacitor but cannot add to the spark.
After working for Westinghouse in World War II, he founded the Beta Electric Corporation, building it into a leading source of high-voltage electrical supplies before selling the company in 1956.