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Re: RF sent to bed without supper
Yuri,
The little hole on the extension cord is not a good RF ground. The
house wiring is not a good RF ground. When it comes to RF, a relatively
short length of wire, has a great deal of inductive reactance. The wire
that comes out of the wall snakes around through the wall studs and over
the attic or into the basement in its serpentine path to the panel box
and the house ground. In effect: a radio antenna.
15 KV is a lot of voltage for a TC exciter. Power determines the scare
factor of a coil more than voltage.
Your coil will work better with a proper ground, and you will create
much less television interference (the real neighbor concern) with a
good ground and filter.
The RF ground has to penetrate to damp soil. More surface area is
better. If you live in an area where the bedrock is close to the
topsoil, a ground plane (buried radials) may be necessary for a good
ground. Keep the wire to the ground heavy and thick for low RF
resistance.
I live in an area that has sand from the retreating (I hope) sea. I
have a ten foot copper pipe sunk nine feet down and a four foot length
of wire to the base of the coil.
There is a potential difference of about three volts DC between the RF
and house ground. (no relation to TC work, just an interesting fact) I
can light an LED with the stray ground currents.
good luck
bob
Tesla List wrote:
>
> Original Poster: "Yuri Markov" <wmondale-at-hotmail-dot-com>
>
> In several diagrams of the tesla coil circuit layout, I have seen two
> different types of grounds labeled - what appears to be a normal
> ground, for the transformer and such, and an RF ground. Is this
> saying that the third little hole on my extension cord is not
> sufficient to ground the base of my secondary coil? Am I meant to
> drive a six-foot stake into the back yard to ground the secondary?
> For the record, if it makes a difference, my goal is to have visible
> sparks, not to scare the neighbors - my power source will be no
> greater than 15000 volts.