Re: Grounding. Oh joy.

To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: Grounding. Oh joy.
From: "Dr. Resonance" <Dr.Resonance-at-next-wave-dot-net> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 19:54:27 -0600
Approved: twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net
Delivered-To: fixup-tesla-at-pupman-dot-com-at-fixme

to: Yuri

A good way to ground the sec coil without running pieces of sheet copper and
messing with epoxies, is just use a 4 AWG fine stranded welding cable which
is available through any local supplier of welding equipment.  For coils
running above 4 kVA use 2 ought welding cable.  The peak RF currents require
a ground with a low impedance.

If other people in your immediate area are using the water pipe as an
electrical ground then they could possibly get sparks out of their water
faucets if there was a poor ground path, however, this is extremely
unlikely. It would be a problem in an apartment building where many persons
share a common water pipe.   In many conditions, the water pipe will serve
as a good electrical ground for your secondary coil.  You might need to
experiment with this to determine optimum conditions.

Most coilers use a pair of copper ground rods approximately 10 feet apart
driven into the ground, and then connect to them with a low resistance cable
such as the welding cable.  Welding cable is convenient because it can
easily be rolled up and moved aside when the coil is not in use.

If the bottom of the secondary coil does not have a low impedance ground it
doesn't know which end of the coil is supposed to be hot, so it starts
arcing out of the lower turns and can quickly destroy the coil or wires'
insulation.  This is why a good ground is essential for proper operation.

Regards,

Dr.Resonance




-----Original Message-----
From: Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Date: Saturday, July 24, 1999 3:22 AM
Subject: Grounding. Oh joy.


>Original Poster: "Yuri Markov" <wmondale-at-hotmail-dot-com>
>
>1. I have heard that it can be a good idea to epoxy a flat piece of copper
>to the base of a secondary to serve as a ground terminal. Would a piece of
>aluminum tape work also?
>
>2. I have heard that I can use something vaguely like chicken wire called
RF
>Grounding Strap to ground the secondary. Where do I get this? THe local
>hardware store? Home Depot? Or the ends of the Earth?
>
>3. I have heard that I should not ground the secondary to a water pipe.
Why?
>I'd like to know, because I don't feel like diging a six-foot-hole when
>there is an iron well in the backyard that goes a whole lot deeper than six
>feet.
>
>4. I have heard of coils "failing" when they are not properly grounded. Is
>this failing as in "not doing anything," or as in "blowing up beyond all
>hope of repair and forcing me to wind another three pounds of magnet wire
on
>another ten dollar PVC pipe?"
>
>Thanks for advice.
>
>-Yuri Markov
>Who has heard
>
>
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