Re: What gets connected to RF ground?

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

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <tatesla-at-lists.symmetric-dot-net>


>Original poster: "Jeremy D. Gassmann by way of Terry Fritz 
><teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <gassmajd-at-email.uc.edu>
>Group,
>         I have been doing research on grounding and what you ground to 
> what (ie RF ground and mains ground) and I have found some conflicting

[cut]
>         You ground your variac housing to your neutral wire. All other 
> coil controls, relay housings, control xfrmr cores, line RFI filters (run

This is dangerous and a really bad idea. Neutral is not ground, and should 
not be used as one. Let's pretend you have a short circuit or have a lose 
or bad neutral connection. Resisitive losses across the hot and neutral 
will cause your neutral "ground" point at your equipment (variac) to end up 
at half of line voltage- not something you want to touch. As for bad 
connections, if anything breaks your neutral connection, your variac or 
chassis is now at the same potential as your hot. you might as well 
"ground" your stuff off the hot side.
In 240 volt use, both sides are "hot" , so this technique won't work 
anyways, which is a good thing.
Ground connections can be bonded to your neutral at the service entrance, 
or in isolation transformers. Any load on a normal circuit will make a 
voltage across the neutral making it a lousy ground for sensitive loads 
like computers. Ground connections ideally carry zero current and are 
floating at 0 volts above earth ground. This is not the case in real life, 
but they are still at a lower potential than your neutral will be at the 
load. So, for safety purposes, you want to be as close to the potential you 
are standing on anyways.
KEN