Re: Faraday Cage

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

Original poster: "Jim Lux by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net>

The cage IS the RF ground for the coils, if the coil is running inside the 
cage.  In theory(!) the RF will stay inside.

What's the floor of the cage?

I'd just ground the cage to safety ground.

Think carefully about how you're running wires through the cage 
wall.  Holes won't make much difference (camera port), as long as no wire 
goes through it.  However, the AC power wires can serve as a means for RF 
to get out of the cage.  Think about getting/building a good line filter 
and installing it in the wall of the cage, with the cage bonded all the way 
around the filter.

The ground rods probably aren't really necessary (for the cage), because 
the RF current will never get to them (since you aren't going to run a 
ground wire out through a hole in the cage), and presumably, your house 
wiring will have safety grounding.

On the other hand, the oudoor ground rod will be handy when you want to run 
the coil outdoors in the summer.


At 11:25 AM 12/16/2002 -0700, you wrote:
>Original poster: "Harold Weiss by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" 
><hweiss-at-new.rr-dot-com>
>
>Hi All,
>
>I'm sick of waiting for a somewhat warm calm night to fire my coils.  I am 
>also tired of trying to get my father away from home because of his 
>pacemaker.  I am now building a Faraday cage in the basement.  It will be 
>10' X 10' X 7' and be built out of 3/4" Cu pipe and chicken wire, with a 
>1/4" hardware cloth roof.  Other than the door which will be caged, there 
>will be two ports, one 6" X 6" port for cable passthru, and one 6" X 6" 
>camera port.  Grounding will be made by a 8' copper ground rod, and 3 
>strands of # 6 bare ground wire.  The 8' rod will hit lake level during 
>the summer, but the lake level drops about 1 1/2' in the winter.  The top 
>of the rod will be monumented with a concrete pad so I don't hit it with a 
>lawnmower.  I am thinking of adding a separate RF ground for the 
>coils.  Is this separate RF ground okay?
>
>David E Weiss