The final bits.

Hi. This must be the last job on my Tesla Coil build. I need to make an earthing point on the main Tesla coil body. Most of the earth leads in my Tesla are connected to the earthing point on the neon transformer. These are

1. Connection to the strike rail underneath the primary coil perspex covering disc.
2. Connection to the lower terminal on the secondary coil.
3. Connection to the central rail on the Terry filter.

So I need to connect this point to my earthing plate on the conservatory wall. I could just run a wire from the earth plate through one of the vent holes in the Tesla base to the earth terminal on the neon transformer. The problem with this solution is that it would be impossible to remove this lead as the ring terminal needed on the end of the wire will not pass through the vent hole. Even if I enlarge the vent hole it would still involve removing one of the perspex walls of the base unit to attach/detach this wire.

After some thought I decided to fit an earthing point on the outside of the back perspex wall of the main Tesla unit. This would consist of 2 copper terminal lugs, one mounted inside, one mounted outside, connected through the perspex by a M6 bolt.

Above is the hardware for the terminal, I will probably replace the stainless M6 bolt with a homemade copper stud but will need to procure an M6 die first.

I made a small lead that finishes in a ring terminal to connect to the new earth point. I fitted the lead to give me a better idea where to site the hole for the terminal.

Marked up the point to drill the 6mm hole. I drilled the hole freehand, there were no obstructions and it was pretty easy to keep the drill at right angles to the perspex.

Result was a nice neat 6mm hole. My OCD placed it on the centre with the vent holes and level with the end of the neon transformer.

Here's the hardware fitted. I used 2 of the copper lugs from Alan at teslastuff.com. These are the best quality electrical lugs I have seen.

The terminal was connected to the short lead from the neon transformer earth point and the perspex sidewall replaced. Job done.

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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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