Re: best ground for tesla coils?

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

Original poster: "davep by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <davep-at-quik-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".

         I would say 'probably' 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.

         Other parameters, ferinstance radiated emi?
         Efficiency?


>You know...someone really should do a scientific study

         Hard to do.  Huge number of different possibilities
         in ground arrangement, wire length, what's under the
         coil (which can provide an 'invisible' RF ground.

>analysing different TC RF ground systems at varying
>power levels and maybe we could end this debate once
>and for all.
         Perhaps its a useful discussion...


>>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.
         ...and the same archives will show many

         people finding that improving the ground
         helps.

         best
         dwp

...the net of a million lies...
         Vernor Vinge
There are Many Web Sites which Say Many Things.
         -me