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Re: fire hydrant rf ground?



Original poster: "Yurtle Turtle by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <yurtle_t-at-yahoo-dot-com>

It depends on the pipe material. Municipalities use
PVC, Asbestoc/Cement (AC), HDPE, Cast Iron, Spiral
Welded Steel, and Ductile Iron (DIP), among others.

We use 100% DIP. However, this pipe isn't meant to
conduct electricity to ground. DIP comes with an
asphaltic coating to protect it from corrosion. If you
live in an area with agressive soils, polyethylene
bags and/or cathodic protection may also be used.
Cathodic protection may be active or passive, and
wouldn't like to be hit with a large current. Also,
the gaskets may not allow conduction to adjacent
pipes, unless cathodic protection is used.

While most houses have their ground connected to their
supply line (which belongs to the owner of the house)
most municipalities would freak if they found out you
were connecting something to a hydrant (which belongs
to them, not you). I suspect that if you live in an
area which uses active cathodic protection, you'd run
a good chance of killing it, which could result in
literally hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of
corrosion damage.

I wouldn't do it.

Adam


--- Tesla list <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com> wrote:
 > Original poster: "Adam Britt by way of Terry Fritz
 > <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <beans45601-at-sbcglobal-dot-net>
 >
 >
 > Do fire hydrants make good rf grouds for tesla coil
 > use? how would i go
 > about hooking a wire up to the hydrant? Are there
 > special hydrants that
 > work better than others (do they have salt water
 > hydrants?)?
 >
 > Thanks
 >
 > Adam
 >
 >