-----Original Message-----
From: tesla-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:tesla-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of jimlux
Sent: Friday, August 01, 2008 12:06 AM
To: Tesla Coil Mailing List
Subject: Re: [TCML] Line Filter Rating
bunnykiller wrote:
> Hey John...
>
> Since you are imploying a 9/30 NST as the power supply, you have a few
> options as far as grounding. In preferential order here they are
>
> 1. ( expensive) pound about 10 8' copper rods into your lawn and
> connect all of them together with 1/2" thick solid core copper wire :)~
Not only expensive, but sort of massive overkill... On the other hand,
if your coil magically calls down lightning strikes, then you're all set.
> 2. ( affordable) drive 1 8' copper clad steel rod into the ground and
> connect with 12 ga. wire
For a 9/30? How long is that 12ga wire? Unless the ground rod is right
underneath the coil, I don't know that this is much better than just
laying the wire on the ground, sans rod.
> 3. ( cheaper) drive 2' of steel pipe with 12 ga. wire attached
> 4. (really cheap) use a counterpoise made of chicken wire approximately
> 3X3 feet attached to the base of the secondary with 10 ga. wire
You might go to 4x4 ft.. and AWG 16 wire is a lot easier to handle, and
will certainly handle the not too massive current from a 9/30 (after
all, the RMS current in the PRIMARY is 30mA, tops, and the RMS current
in the secondary is probably less than 1 mA. Peak currents are higher,
sure, but the secondary is wound with a good fraction of a mile of
fairly fine wire, so the extra loss from a couple feet of AWG 16 as
opposed to AWG 10 is negligible.
> 5. ( really cheap now) spread alot of salt on the living room carpet and
> soak well with water, attach wire to plumbing or gas pipe and lay wire
> on carpet or better yet in soaking wet carpet pad... not the best idea
> but possible with potential dangers involved ( do not touch toroid while
> barefoot on the wet carpet if using this method)......
Or, invite a crew of incontinent beer drinkers over and get a barrel of
beer...
Or all the puppies from 101 Dalmatians? (prior to house training)
> 6. dont ground at all but be prepared for transformer/cap failure or
> racing arcs on the secondary...
Oh yeah.. an excellent way to kill your NST, if the secondary doesn't
catch fire first..
been there, done that..