More "Ground" Work on the Tesla Coil

Hi again. Over the last couple of days I have been working on the grounding system for my Tesla. As mentioned in my last post, I had already sank one copper rod in the lawn. Plan was to get another couple of rods form B+Q and have 3 ground points spread across the lawn. Slight problem, I sank the first rod several weeks back and I now can't find it!

So 3 rods were purchased from my local B+Q. The rods are about £12 each, they are 1m long 10mm diameter copper plated rod with a nice copper terminal clamp.

The 3 grounding wires will pass through the conservatory wall and meet in the pattress box. They will pass through 3 separate holes drilled with a super long 8mm masonry bit.

I removed a small piece of turf (about 18" square) and dug out some earth down to about 10". Here's a picture of the first hole. The wire will be sank under the turf by cutting a line with a spade and easing the turf up and pushing the wire under (a trick learned watching Virgin installation engineers).

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The copper plated rod was hammered into the centre of the hole. You have to fit the clamp onto the rod before you sink it as the hammering will splay out the top of the rod making it impossible to slide the clamp over afterwards. The grounding wire was attached using a solder ring terminal and the hole back filled and turf replaced.

Above you can see the position of the second ground wire. The process was repeated exactly the same as the first ground point.

And here is the 3rd and final ground wire laid out. All the wires run into the gravel filled trench that runs around the conservatory wall. You can see Karel (wife) covering the two completed grounds.

Here's the last rod being sank. Think I was pretty lucky that all the rods went in without to much trouble.

Here are all the 3 wires in place. Next job is to wire up the grounding plate in the conservatory wall.

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Grounding point for the Tesla Coil

I am going to need some way to ground my Tesla coil. Obviously dumping these high voltages into your household wiring isn't a good idea. I have heard of several other ways, one suggestion was to ground to your cold water pipes (thanks Mike), others include wire mesh lied flat on the floor etc. I wanted a neat and more permanent solution. I am going to install 3 copper grounding rods into my lawn. These four foot rods are available from B+Q, I have already sank one into the centre of the lawn, the other 2 will be close to the lawn edges as far from the central rod as possible. I have some really meaty 5 awg silicon coated wire which will run from the submerged tops of each rod, under the lawn to the wall of my conservatory.

The 3 wires will run under the drainage gravel around the edge of the conservatory and will run up the wall just to the right of the wall basket.

They will pass through the wall and come together in a single pattress box mounted in the conservatory wall.

The box will be sank into the wall just behind Milo to the left of the double plug socket. There is no existing house wiring to the left of the sockets, the mains wiring travels clockwise around the conservatory. I measured up and picked a drilling point on the outside wall which would bring me out central between the plug socket and the corner in the wall.

Drilled through with my super long 8mm masonry bit, slowing down and reducing pressure approaching breakthrough to prevent blasting a hole in the plasterboard.

I threaded a short piece of the 5 awg silicon wire through the hole just to check hole size was OK.

Here's the components for the earthing point, a 26mm deep single pattress box and a 100mm square 3mm thick copper plate. There will be some kind of terminal central in the copper plate, not decided on it's final design yet.

I masked up the plate and marked up the positions for screw holes to mount the plate to the back box. The 3.5mm holes were drilled and countersunk.

You can simply put the pattress box over the hole for the wire, draw round it and the remove the plaster. I used my Dremel with a spiral cutter, it made short work of the plaster, took about 60 seconds to work around the outline of the pattress. The cut out plaster can then be remove with an old flat bladed screwdriver or chisel.

I attached the copper plate to the pattress box and placed it into the cut-out. I am not going to permanently fit the back box yet. I will do it when I address the wiring to the 3 grounding rods.

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