Re: How do I protect supply wires

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

Original poster: "J. B. Weazle McCreath" <weazle-at-hurontel.on.ca> 


At 09:33 PM 20/02/04 -0700, you wrote:

 >Original poster: "steve" <steve_vance-at-cablelynx-dot-com>
 >
 >HI all,
 >
 >Putting the finishing touches on my coil.  I do have a safety
 >concern though. This is going to be my biggest coil yet. 5KVA.
 >I never had to worry about Streamer hits to my primary or the
 >supply lines with the NST's I've been using. I added a strike
 >rail to my primary but not sure of the best way to protect my
 >supply lines.  I'm going to have my pig about 30 ft away.  I
 >was planning on putting the last 15ft in pvc then covering
 >them with a strip of earth grounded wire mesh.  Is this a
 >bad idea? What do you experienced coilers do?
 >
 >Steve Vance
 >

Hi Steve, Coilers,

In my opinion, having the PDT 30 feet from the coil is a bit
of an overkill that might even create problems, rather than
minimising them.  At 5 KVA input you'll be in the ballpark
of ten foot streamers, so putting the PDT much further away
than that would be unneccessary.

What I would do would be to put your supply lines inside of
a couple lengths of 1/2 or 3/4 inch PVC that would lay flat
on the ground, then bring the leads up into the coil base
within the radius of the strike rail.  That would put the
verticle part of the wire run in the "zone of protection"
provided by the strike rail.  Putting a grounded wire mesh
over the supply might have a detrimental effect, since it
could act as a target for a strike, in addition it would
put a small capacity between the supply lines and ground,
which could be troublesome.

73, Weazle, VE3EAR/VE3WZL

Details of my "Hyperbaric Gap" and Tesla coil are at:
http://www.hurontel.on.ca/~weazle