RE: best ground for tesla coils?

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

Original poster: "Brett Miller by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <brmtesla-at-yahoo-dot-com>

Phil,

--- Tesla list <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com> wrote:
 > Original poster: "Phil Strons by way of Terry Fritz
 > <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <pstrons-at-directvinternet-dot-com>
 >
 > I have some additional ground questions.
 >
 > My first coil will be a small one, only 270 watts.
 > So, is all this
 > effort that's been described really necessary for
 > me?

I would say "absolutely not".  My first coil was 230
watts and I just used about a 6 foot long sheet of
aluminum foil (counterpoise) unrolled on the floor and
attached to the bottom of the secondary, and that
worked fine.  I later compaired it with a true RF
ground and there was no spark length improvement.

You know...someone really should do a scientific study
analysing different TC RF ground systems at varying
power levels and maybe we could end this debate once
and for all.

 > Can't I get away
 > with a smaller ground?

Many people have had success with quite minimal
grounds...in some cases with power levels above
several KVA.  Check the archives.

-Brett
hot-streamer-dot-com/brett

 >
 > Thanks,
 > Phil Strons


_