[TCML] secondary connections & RF ground

[eitreim family <eitreimfamily@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Folks,

My son and his friend have finished building their coil, and are troubleshooting.  They have been having problems with arcing between the primary and secondary.  I read yesterday that the secondary should be grounded, so they fixed that but have yet to test it again.

Our questions: 

1. what is the best way to ground the secondary?  I have seen a couple of articles about using a strip of copper.  Will a simple soldered space lug connector plugged in to another spade lug connector soldered to 12AWG wire work?  That 12AWG wire then goes to a barrier strip, which goes to ground.

(photo deleted)

2. how critical is it that the connection to the toroid be very close to the cylinder of the secondary?  should there be a few looser windings gradually ascending to the connection?  
here is theirs:

(photo deleted)

3. how thorough should we be with RF ground?  right now we have a few 2' pieces of rebar pounded almost all the way into the ground, with ground wires wrapping the rebar.  they have also experimented with running some garden fence under the coil, also connected to the rebar.  the best level ground is in the driveway, but is it better to be on the lawn?

I had to delete the photos, but if anyone is interested I would love to send them.  They're worth a thousand words (each).


Great fun.  Thank you all for your ongoing help! 


Jeff & the boys_______________________________________________
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