Re: Some newbie questions

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: Esondrmn-at-aol-dot-com 

In a message dated 1/6/04 11:58:40 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
tesla-at-pupman-dot-com writes:


>Hey guys!
>
>Building a coil in my garage, and have a couple questions.
>
>Can I drill a hole in the pvc pipe and run the 2 ends of the secondary coil
>inside the pipe to a lug in the caps and then use a bolt to exit the pipe?
>
>Does everything needing to be grounded go to the same ground rod? Strike
>rod, secondary coil, etc?
>
>Are there any cheap protection I can use to protect the NST? I don't want
>to spend 50 bucks worth of stuff for that one protection circuit. Will a
>safety gap, and 2 chokes work well? Chokes are just magnet wire wrapped
>about 100 times around a pvc pipe correct?
>
>Thanks a bunch!
>
>Aaron


Aaron,

The conventional wisdom is to not run the secondary wires into the center 
of the form.  This just makes it easier to flash over inside from top to 
bottom.  And you usually won't notice this until it has formed carbon 
tracks in the plastic.

I use at least two grounds on my coils.  The variac case and ac line filter 
go to line ground.  All other grounds go to the ground rod, i.e. bottom of 
secondary, nst case, strike rail and center electrode of the safety gap.

I only use a safety gap and 25 watt 1,000 ohm resistors in series with each 
H.V. lead for protection and have not had any problems with this.  Do not 
use chokes as it may cause resonance problems with the nst and do more harm 
than good.

Ed Sonderman