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Re: RF Ground



Hi Ben,

You will no doubt get a lot of answers about rf ground. For some coilers, they
have no choice and have to use a water pipe or similar for thier rf ground
(coilers in appartments and similar housing), but it is not ideal. An rf ground
is ideally a seperate ground which is not directly connected to house wiring
ground, water pipes, etc.. that is designed for rf frequencies of which our
Tesla
coils operate at. Welding cable, due to the large number of thin copper strands
is a great cable to use to connect the TC to the rf ground. There are a lot of
methods coilers invoke for their rf grounds based on what their options are.
For
myself, I dug a trench about 2 feet deep which extended from the corner of my
garage out into the yard. In this trench, I ran copper tubing from the corner
of
the house to my rf ground point out in the yard. I have two solid copper ground
rods hammered into the ground and spaced about 4 feet apart and both are
hammered
2 feet below the top soil. I then buried the whole mess and grass is growing
once
again over the area. I then just connect all rf ground points to the connection
at the corner of the garage. This allows me to run inside or outside the garage
as weather permits.

Obviously, don't hammer anything down into your yard until you first find out
what's down there. The last thing you want to do is puncture a high current
cable
or gas pipe.

Bart

Tesla List wrote:

> Original Poster: Ben Ramsey <Ramsey-at-bellsouth-dot-net>
>
> Hey guys,
>
>     Thanks for all the input that my last inquiry brought.  Next question; I
> keep reading referances to an RF ground on the TC and I want to know how this
> should be built, wired or whatever.  I read that the coil should not be
> grounded with the house plumbing, but that is all that I know.  Thanks.
>
> Ben
> "I pray every night that I will not be burned on the inside"- N Tesla