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Re: earth ground

Subject: 
        Re: earth ground
  Date: 
        Sat, 12 Apr 1997 19:53:32 -0500
  From: 
        " Brad Blackburn" <cave-at-ldd-dot-net>
    To: 
        "Tesla List" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>


As far as driving ground rods go. As an electrician we used to dig a
small
hole where the ground rod would go. Just pretend you are putting a
potted
plant in the ground. Fill the hole with water, then work the ground rod
up
and down. Kinda works like the old percussion well drilling rigs. Unless
you have large rocks in your soil, I can usually sink an 8' ground in
about
a minute. You may have to wallow the hole out with the ground rod as you
get deeper in the ground. This can usually get the rod down to less than
12" showing. Just drive it the rest of the way with a sledge. Hope this
makes sense.
   
Brad Blackburn      
cave-at-ldd-dot-net              
                                           

 

----------
> From: Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
> To: tesla-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com
> Subject: earth ground
> Date: Saturday, April 12, 1997 7:28 AM
> 
> Subject: 
>         earth ground
>   Date: 
>         Fri, 11 Apr 1997 21:11:32 -0700
>   From: 
>         Gary Weaver <gweaver-at-earthlink-dot-net>
>     To: 
>         tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
> 
> 
> I have been wanting to hook up a good ground system for my tesla coil. 
> I 
> think 10 ground rods around the garage would be nice.  Lowe's has 8'
> ground 
> rods for $6.99 each.  The local electrical supply store has 8' ground
> rods 
> for $4.00 each. Hammering these rods in the ground will be hard, take
> lots of 
> time and cost at least $40.00 plus tax.
> 
> I decided to buy a $2.59 brass fitting at the hardware store that allows
> me 
> to attach the garden hose to a 1/2" steel water pipe.  The water pipe is
> 6' 
> long.  My water pressure is 35 psi.  I turn on the water and push the
> 1/2" 
> pipe into the ground.  Its simple.  I am drilling 1" diameter holes 6'
> deep 
> into the ground and it takes less than 2 minutes per hole.  The water
> flushes 
> out the dirt at the end of the pipe and the pipe goes down, down, down. 
> The 
> water velocity washes up all the dirt to the surface leaving a hole
> after the 
> pipe is pulled up.
> 
> I have several short pieces of 1/2" diameter copper tubing about 2' and
> 3' 
> long.  I soldered a #6 wire to each piece of copper tubing.  I dropped a 
> piece of tubing in each hole and push it to the bottom of the hole using
> the 
> wire.  Then I made a cut in the ground 1/4" wide 3" deep using a thing
> called 
> a scraper.  The scraper is a thing that looks like a garden hoe except
> the 
> metal piece on the end of the handle is parallel to the handle not 90
> degrees 
> to the handle like a hoe.  The scraper can be pushed into the ground
> like a 
> shovel. The cut in the ground connects all the holes together in a
> circle 
> around the garage.  I soldered several short pieces of #6 copper wire 
> together into one long wire. I put a piece of #6 wire in the ground and 
> solder it to each ground wire in the holes.  Everything is hidden under 
> ground except for one wire that comes up next to the garage door and
> goes 
> into the garage to the tesla coil.
> 
> I did all this from scrap stuff that I alread had.  The only thing I had
> to 
> buy was the brass fitting from the hardware store.
> 
> It works great.  I can see a big improvement in the Tesla Coil.
> 
> Gary Weaver       Experement #7926
>