[TCML] Pictures of my Tesla Coil

[Barton B. Anderson]

Hi Dirk,

Make sure the coil is RF grounded and that RF ground is dedicated. If 
you forget to do that, it does play havoc on the house. I lost a 
computer from just such a situation with a small coil. It started with 
the sound card but eventually the whole video section of the motherboard 
died. I'm using a super slow computer at the moment (guess what was on 
my Christmas list to Santa?).

I even killed my sons xbox360 during that same run. As I studied the 
coil, I realized I didn't have RF ground hooked up (the cable was lying 
there on the floor). So many years of running coils and this day I had 
problems? What was different? RF ground was different (clear as night 
and day). The coil ran fine without RF ground, but the house didn't like 
it. Lucky for me, my sons xbox360 was replaced at no charge by the 
manufacturer (Microsoft I think).

Cautious is good. Bad things can happen. The further you are away from 
the coil the better. But, if their on the same circuit, bad things can 
happen regardless. Make sure RF ground is a low impedance for the coil. 
If it's too high, it "will" find a way back into the mains and to 
everything connected to mains ground. Those transients will also travel 
along hot and neutral. But with a decent RF ground, that current has a 
place to go.

Take care,
Bart




Dirk Stubbs wrote:
> snip
>   

> Anxious to try once the weather clears up in Kansas. I am not confident
> with running the coil in the house as I have alot of computers and
> afraid something bad will happen. Call me a chicken I guess. :)