Re: secondary grounding terminal

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Mike Nolley by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <nolleym-at-willamette.edu>

> The RMS secondary base current of a modest NST-powered coil is only a
> fraction of an Amp.  Terry measured 350mA RMS for his 15/60-powered
> coil.  The goal of the secondary connection is to provide a low
> resistance, low inductance path from the base to RF ground.  The
> resistance contributed by any reasonable base connection is negligible
> when compared with the total path.  So it won't matter if you use
> silver-plated battery connectors or Fahnstock (sp?) clips, as long as
> the basic connection is sound.

    Thanks for clearing this up.  I remember having a conversation with a
coiling friend where we
discussed the ground connection, and I wondered why the base connector had
to be large when the
secondary wire itself was tiny.  Your explanation makes a good deal of
sense.  Also--since the TC
is a high peak power, low average power device (excepting the largest TCs)
we don't need to
over-engineer the connector cables as much as we might have to if, for
example, it was operated
CW.
            --Mike