wow, I have been reading up about current sources. I think I kind of get it. But if one uses the output combined with a capacitor to power a light bulb rather than charge a battery, what would the voltage source be? or am I simply not understanding it?

Thanks for all the info everyone, its all very interesting .

Forget about the capacitor in your example to keep it simple.  If you have a current source of one ampere, and the filament of the light bulb is 50 ohms, then the current through the light bulb will be one ampere and the voltage across the light bulb will be 50 volts.

Why have you been doing this test? 

Because I wanted to

Okay, so you didn't really know why you were doing the test and you were just doing it by rote.

Most people know that you don't put your multimeter on current measurement and then connect the probes across a voltage source because that can blow the multimeter.

You're funny

Well, you're a joke.  You gave somebody bad advice and you were corrected.  It's even potentially physically dangerous advice if a coil were to discharge into one hand, go through your heart, and then into your other hand that is at ground potential.  You try to do the "big lecture" about maturity in past discussions, and yet your two responses to me are immature and typical of a ten-year-old.  The irony.

The sky is blue

Well at least you have a sense of humour

I never stated anything about the specifics of any coil with respect to the size of the coil, the resistance of the wire, or the initial current flow when disconnected.

Just do the research:

https://www.google.ca/#q=how+much+current+can+kill+you

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For example, 1/10 of an ampere (amp) of electricity going through the body for just 2 seconds is enough to cause death. The amount of internal current a person can withstand and still be able to control the muscles of the arm and hand can be less than 10 milliamperes (milliamps or mA).
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A domestic power supply voltage (110 or 230 V), 50 or 60 Hz alternating current (AC) through the chest for a fraction of a second may induce ventricular fibrillation at currents as low as 30 mA.[6] With direct current (DC), 300 to 500 mA is required.[7] If the current has a direct pathway to the heart (e.g., via a cardiac catheter or other kind of electrode), a much lower current of less than 1 mA (AC or DC) can cause fibrillation. If not immediately treated by defibrillation, fibrillation is usually lethal because all of the heart muscle cells move independently instead of in the coordinated pulses needed to pump blood and maintain circulation. Above 200 mA, muscle contractions are so strong that the heart muscles cannot move at all, but these conditions prevent fibrillation.
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Just like a discharging coil, which is an unstoppable current source, will force current into a badly sulfated battery, a discharging coil will force current through the human body.

For someone that does not know what they are doing, making a near-useless measurement of the voltage generated by a coil in a typical Bedini-type setup with no charging battery in place could be lethal.

Actually whilst we're at it, don't stick a metal fork into the toaster

Is it OK to use a butter knife?  (Actually, it isn't...ask me how I know, ha ha)

Bill

I'll go and conduct the experiment and get back to you.