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Strike Rails: The Big Question
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From: Jeff W. Parisse [SMTP:jparisse-at-teslacoil-dot-com]
Sent: Saturday, March 14, 1998 10:31 AM
To: Tesla List
Subject: Strike Rails: The Big Question
All
I've been wondering about this for a few months now and
I think it's time to bring it up for discussion.
Mark Bean and I did a demonstration for the Nevada Power
Company and after we finished we were given a king's tour
of the facilities and had every question we could think of
answered. We asked about the thin wires that ride above
most if not all high power lines (you know, those huge metal
towers that usually have two sets of three cables). Before
the question was answered, I believed them to be ground
wires for lightning protection. I was wrong. What we were
told was that these wires ARE ground wires but not for
lightning protection. The ground wires are flown above the
HV cables to "bleed up" the electrical field that would
otherwise "bleed down" to ground interfering with
communications, etc. In other words, the wires serve to
shape and drain the em-field that propagates from the HV
lines.
QUESTIONS: So why do so many use grounded strike rails
above their primaries? Wouldn't a safety gap placed on
the tank circuit serve to protect the primary components from
the effects of a secondary strike to the primary coil? Doesn't
a strike rail give a charged toroid a nice juicy grounded target
to hunt for, thereby INCITING strikes in the proximity of the
primary coil? Does a strike rail "drain, distort and weaken"
the EM field created by the primary coil?
I've never used a strike rail and have always given my coils
a place to go (a grounded target) so as to avoid primary
coil strikes. But, Big Red's gonna need a new primary coil
and I was just mulling over this issue. Guys?...
Jeff W. Parisse, Director
kVA Effects
www.teslacoil-dot-com