RE: 12" coil first light (7 foot arcs!), live case and cabinet

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Daniel Hess by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <dhess1-at-us.ibm-dot-com>


Scot;

You mention that your power supply cabinet is grounded via the supply
ground. Is the case connected to a true, house ground (green), and not the
neutral (white)?

In my setup, and because my control box uses both 120 and 240 VAC, I have 4
wires coming from the circuit breaker panel into my control box;

Black; 120 VAC (1/2 of the 240)
Red    120 VAC (2/2 of the 240)
White  Neutral
Green  House ground

To test;

With an AC meter, I can read 120 VAC from both the black to chassis (ground
potential) and from red to chassis.
>From white to green I read virtually zero volts. After verifying this step,
on the resistance scale (again, white to green) you should read less than 1
ohm. Do not depend on the white neutral conductor to serve as a chassis
ground. You may have noticed that recently, all new electric clothes dryers
now come equipped with a four-prong plug (black, red, white and green)
whereas for years they used only three. They were using neutral as the
frame ground and discovered the hard way that doesn't always provide the
protection intended. If your setup doesn't test out as described I would
urge you to discover why and make the necessary corrections.

I also use a dedicated RF ground for the secondary base, pig case and the
safety ground. I don't use an RF filter but if I did, I'd ground it to the
RF ground as well.

These two grounds are in no way connected except through Mother Earth.

Safe coiling,

Daniel

I also am running a 12 " secondary and even tho I have a HUGE set of RFI
filters in my system ( 2 60 amp filters, one for each leg of the 240
input), I still get "feedback " to my control cabinet in the form of
"consistant " static electricity. Lets say its a feeling of hi voltage
spiking with low amperage ( current). I notice this effect more so when
the coil is running without a direct strike to a grounded rod. When I
use a grounded rod ( 8' pipe within 10' of the coil) the "feedback" from
the coil is minimal ( cant tell if there is actually any voltage
"eminating" from the case to me) but when the coil is running without
the "grounded pipe" to strike to, I refrain from touching the case of
the power supply.

I have also noticed this same situation with my smaller coil ...   the
case of the controller is not touch friendly even though the case is
grounded to the supply ground.....

hmmmmmmmmm    thinking again...


Scot D