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RE: Grounding/spark Gaps/Caps

>Original Poster: "MalikAT" <MalikAT-at-holycross.ac.uk> 
>
>Hi its Tab,
>From what i know these are the things that i should ground: 
>Safety gap for transformer
>Safety gap for capacitor

Usually neither side of one's cap is grounded, so neither should it's safety
gap.

>Strike rail for primary
>Secondary Coil
>Transformer
>From some replies to my last e-mails i have decided not to use chokes. Are
>there any that i have missed and do i need a seperate ground for each one?

Do you mean a separate ground for each of the things you listed above?  No,
they all tie together and go to the same ground.

>how far do they need to be in order to stop the area's they use (in the
>ground) in terms of how far the current goes, from interfearing with each
>other.
>I have been going over the feasability of actually building components of a
>coil in terms of the tools available to me. I first considered the spark
>gap and chose to go with the RQ static (cylindrical version) gap. But after
>building some practice ones and going over the building procedure in my
>head i decided that it wouldn't work. I had the same problem when i changed
>the design to the same gap but this time on a flat peice of PVC or
>somthing. I have finaly decided to build the RQ air blast gap since people
>say it's better than an RSG, can be used for high power coils (dont intend
>to build one.... yet :-) and is easier to build. Can i just use a simple
>nut and bolt to make the electrodes and put them into siutable materials
>Wood (sealed).

The goal is to minimize any points, edges,  or projections on the bolt heads
which would cause the arc to form there.  Ideally you want the two
electrodes to be like to spheres, each smooth and round in the area where
the arc occurs.  Wood should be fine, just allow plenty of distance between
the two electrode connections to avoid surface arcing.

>I heard somwhere that a capacitor plate should never touch a dielectric
>sheet. This has confused me so could anyone put me in the right direction. 

That makes no sense.  The stuff between the plates _is_ the dielectric, be
it oil, poly, or paper,  and there's no way for the plates to not touch it.
Unless they were advocating using a layer of paper between the poly and
plates to assist the oil in filling all voids.

Regards, Gary Lau
Waltham, MA USA