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Re: Forgot to hook up the ground but no visible performance difference.



Original poster: "Terry Fritz" <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>

Hi Garry,

I wonder if the base of the coil being so near the secondary causes some
"ground effects".  The current at the base of the coil may be coupled back
into the primary both through inductance and capacitance...

An odd thought...  Not sure how much truth is there...

Cheers,

	Terry


At 05:06 PM 7/24/2001 -0700, you wrote:
>
>I have a classic, unipole Tesla coil. I have a clip for hooking up the
>ground cable. The unit was at the Northern CA Teslathon. The secondary is
>separately grounded, Last night, I forgot to hook up the ground cable and
>ran it for about 3 good runs of several seconds before I noticed. I was not
>alone. ;-)
>
>Anyway, I figured it would be toast for sure and sparks would fly every
>direction out the base if I forgot to ground, but not only did it not fry,
>but I noticed no performance difference! I hooked up the ground and ran it
>and neither one of us can see a difference.
>
>I'm certain it was not grounded any other way.
>
>The only thing, I can guess, is that at the frequency, the wooden base was
>conducting enough to sufficiently ground it.
>
>I note that a lot of folk's coils show an obvious performance difference as
>well as toasted household appliances when they are not grounded properly. I
>surely expected this about mine.
>
>I think I'll try to figure out some sort of scheme where the coil will not
>power up unless it is grounded.
>
>PS: All my spark picture of the N. Teslathon on Saturday (The day I went)
>were ruined except one. If anyone has some nice spark pictures, I would like
>to recieve them. ye can send to garryfre-at-pacbell-dot-net. Thanks kindly.
>