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How good is my ground?
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From: Steve Falco [SMTP:sfalco-at-worldnet.att-dot-net]
Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 1998 9:24 PM
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: How good is my ground?
I just sank an 8 foot ground rod into my back yard. The soil consists
of moist clay, and I drove the rod straight down until the top was a few
inches below the soil surface. The rod is a standard copper-clad 1/2"
steel rod bought from an electrical supply store. I located the rod
about 6 feet from the house to ensure it would be in a wet location
(away from the roof overhang). It is connected to #6 bare copper wire
which runs through the basement foundation wall to my coil.
Performance of the coil is about the same as when I was using the house
grounding system. This new ground rod is totally isolated from the
house ground.
A volt meter reads about .5 vac from a wall outlet ground terminal to
the new rod. I also get a reading of about .36 vdc between the same two
points. Trying to measure resistance is futile with this much AC/DC
riding between the two points (at least with my Radio Shack digital
voltmeter :-).
So, is this ground any good? It seems to work ok, but I'm curious if
there is a straighforward way to measure the performance. Maybe try to
drive some voltage between the two ground points and measure the
current?
Steve Falco