Subject: grounding, misc thanks
Date: Thu, 8 May 97 04:11:27 UT
From: "William Noble" <William_B_Noble-at-msn-dot-com>
To: "Tesla List" <tesla-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com>
1. thanks for all the discussion of why heavy grounds - it was as I
suspected.
In my case I am using a small coil with a 2 foot run to a piece of
burried
electrical conduit for my ground - but I haven't gotten the primary
capacitance high enough to have the streamer strike anything
2. re glass "plastic capaictor" - as my coil now stands, the sparks fade
out
after about 15 seconds due to gap heating so I don't see a risk right
now, but
I did notice a small temperature rise. I don't think this capacitor is
a DC
only type because it's got #8 studs at each end - that implies to me
that it
ought to handle some real current, although perhaps not as much as the
coil
demands of it on a continuous basis.
3 another question - I can get sheets of vinyl (like convertible windows
stuff) in 30 mil thickness at a local plastic store for about $5 per
sheet (as
I recall the sheets are 2ftX3ft), and they have some other plastics,
plus
acrylic and lexan and mirrored acrylic. Vinyl isn't one of the plastics
I saw
listed for a dialectric, and my knowlege of plastics isn't good enough
to tell
what it is chemically. reccommendations??? what about aluminized
plastic of
some kind - even aluminized mylar with additional (non mylar) dielectric
-
that would be easier to roll up, but I'm not quite sure how to get a
good
electrical connection to it for terminals.
4 unrelated money saving remark - Hayes (the modem company) has an
upgrade
offer to their new 56K acura modem - if you have any old hayes modem the
upgrade is $89 plus tax and shipping - since many of us frequent swap
meets,
you will all know that you can get discarded hayes 300 or 1200 bps
modems for
a dollar or two, so this may be an extra thing to look for at those
meets. go
to www.hayes-dot-com and see what you think. they say it could be up to 3
weeks
before they are ready to send the new modem, and they want the old one
sent in
first