Filtering and RF grdg of high powered coils: was: Grounding my TC

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: "David Rieben" <drieben@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Devon, all

This is probably the case with coils up to the medium power
range but from my personal experience, it's not neccessarily
the case when running high powered coils. I am currently in
the process of trying to tune in and "debug" a large coil that
is driven by a 14,400 volt, 15 kVa pole pig. Even when just
barely turning the variac up enough to just get the thing to
start "spitting" it makes my  Brinks home security system go
totally haywire to the point that I have to call them for a ser-
vice call to get it back on line. I am operating with a totally
seperate RF ground for the base of the secondary coil and
the stike ring as well as an industrial grade 3-phase, 80 amp/
440 volt rated power line filter of which I'm using 2 of the line
phase input/outputs for the 2 legs of the 240 volt input. It
doesn't seem to bother any of the other appliances in the house
but this is the second time that I've had to call the alarm com-
pany to fix my  alarm system after firing my coil at the very
lowest possible input power to make it fire at all. I'm thinking
that I will just have to either completely power down my
alarm system before firing (which includes unplugging the
wall transformer and disconnecting the back-up battery)
or move it to another local HV enthusiast place to fire it
(which is not an easy task, considering the size of the system).
Otherwise, I'm afraid the alarm company is going to get wise
to what's causing their system to fail in my house and actually
start charging me for repairing it ;^O Has anyone else experi-
enced this particular problem? One more thing that I may
note concerning this is that the keypad of the alarm system
is right by the entrance door to my garage where I'm firing
my coil(s) from. The small 6kV, 60 mA NST  driven coil
dosen't do this to my alarm system either even though the
ground of it is simply hooked to the house mains ground.
So it appears to be an issue of the power I'm running that's
the culprit. I'm open to any suggestions ..................

David Rieben




----- Original Message ----- From: "Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2005 10:43 PM
Subject: Re: Grounding my TC


> Original poster: Devon Ferns <dferns@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> I was thinking of doing the same thing because I have to run my coil 
> indoors.  Instead what I've done is get an extension cord with a ground 
> prong and hooked the bottom of my secondary to this with a 3 pronged plug. 
> The extension cord runs outside to a copper pipe I hammered into the ground.
> It works great and there's no chance of frying any equipment hooked up to 
> other plugs in the building.
>
> Devon.
>
> > > Original poster: "Steven Steele" <sbsteele@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > >
> > > Instead of hooking my TC up to a grounding plate(whatever it's called), 
> > > would it be a good idea to just run it directly to the ground plug in 
> > > the wall? or would that cause every other apliance that I have plugged 
> > > into the ground to strat arcing everywhere?
> > >
> > > Steven Steele