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Re: [TCML] Grounding Coil to Water Pipe



Skip,
Well written!
I would like to add some caution here too.
In todays plumbing world, plastics are widely used, both in general pipe work but almost always in connections between the fixed piping and faucets which can lead to your metal faucet, sinks, washing machines actually being ungrounded. Now granted a washing machine should be grounded through its plug but I have seen terrible wiring practices and in many older homes, they still have 2 wire systems. Modern hot water heaters are plastic and should have grounding jumper straps across the water connections but again, they are missing a lot!

The best ground is a separate ground for that coil as you state UNLESS you really know your house grounding but even then a RF ground is still the best way to protect your electronics.

This is even true with ham radio!

Well written about a dirty subject!

Frank

At 08:27 PM 04-08-11 -0400, you wrote:
I know this is old, but it is an email that accidentally never got sent. I hope it will be considered useful.

After reading all of the grounding emails (back in September), I thought I would sum things up and add my two cents

This is a very complicated subject. One thing to keep in mind is this simple, but potentially confusing fact: There is no such thing as GROUND.

How can I say this you may ask? GND is not GROUND until it is in the DIRT. I mean that literally. It is not GROUND until you are in the wet conductive dirt of the planet (this becomes more complicated if you are in the desert areas of the southwest where there is little wet dirt). Everything else is just a connection to GROUND. These connections have distance and resistance (and impedance). These are also compromised by other GND connections connected to each other. These connections look like a big tree with the trunk at the DIRT surface with multiple roots going underground. The trunk and branches are the various safety grounds of your electrical system and copper water supply pipes in your house along with the electric service entry from the utility pole outside your house. These are all usually brought together at a single point at your electrical service panel or very close.

The root system is the actual connection system to the DIRT (yes, brown and wet). These consist of a grounding rod or two required by most electrical codes. Normally any other metal pipes entering your house are required to be connected at the electrical service box. This is normally your main circuit breaker panel. Some details may vary if you have a separate service disconnect breaker that is not part of your main distribution panel.

Regarding the Cable, Satellite, Phone, and other utility entrances into your house, these are supposed to be connected as close to the central GROUND point as possible. This is also normally required for a roof mounted antenna This is often done by connecting to the wire from the service box to the outside grounding rod. That puts this connection as close to the DIRT as possible.

HOUSE GROUNDING REQUIREMENTS BY NATIONAL ELECTRICAL CODE
One thing to remember is that the NEC requirements for grounding are only concerned with 60 HZ safety issues. These are only for issues with shorts and leakage currents from faulty connected equipment. They are there to protect a user from contacting 120VAC shock hazards. While most of these codes and requirements would often make a decent RF ground, there is no guarantee unless you connect where the ground wire comes out of the ground.

THE AC GROUNDING TREE
In the case of an equipment failure that may put 60 Hz current into the GND system, it is returned to GROUND without creating any harmful voltages to anyone touching any other device. Again, this was to prevent human harm. In this case, the tree effect in insignificant since all impedances are low. In the case of 60Hz, it is 99.9% DC resistance only. That changes at RF frequencies.

RF GROUNDING
In the case of any radio frequency induced currents, there may be significant voltages at any of the tree's branches or connections that could easily damage electronic equipment. Using an electrical system GROUND or plumbing system GROUND is only useful if it is close to the DIRT.

As stated and seems to be the general consensus, the best Tesla GROUND connection is a separate one to the DIRT as directly as possible. In many homes that I have seen, the AC comes into the house at the garage with the GND rod just outside. In that case, run a simple but separate connection to the GND rod.

GARAGE SYSTEMS ALERT!!!
A bunch of users seem to have garage available for Tesla use. You may have a great GROUND available since your power distribution panel may be in the garage. You also have the garage door opener to protect. These are probably OK from the power line, but would need some protection from the door switch wire acting as a long antenna . This would probably be OK if some .1 or 1.0uF capacitors are connected between the terminals and between each terminal and the case of the opener. That would bypass any RF currents into the case.

I hope this clears things up for some and produces a better understanding of grounding details. If anyone would like to add to this, please let me know off list and I will gladly enhance it and make it available with any improvements. Can anyone provide any diagrams that might be a nice addition?

Happy coiling.

Skip

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