Forgot to hook up the ground but no visible performance difference.

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Original poster: "Garry Freemyer by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <garry-at-ndfc-dot-com>


I have a classic, unipole Tesla coil. I have a clip for hooking up the
ground cable. The unit was at the Northern CA Teslathon. The secondary is
separately grounded, Last night, I forgot to hook up the ground cable and
ran it for about 3 good runs of several seconds before I noticed. I was not
alone. ;-)

Anyway, I figured it would be toast for sure and sparks would fly every
direction out the base if I forgot to ground, but not only did it not fry,
but I noticed no performance difference! I hooked up the ground and ran it
and neither one of us can see a difference.

I'm certain it was not grounded any other way.

The only thing, I can guess, is that at the frequency, the wooden base was
conducting enough to sufficiently ground it.

I note that a lot of folk's coils show an obvious performance difference as
well as toasted household appliances when they are not grounded properly. I
surely expected this about mine.

I think I'll try to figure out some sort of scheme where the coil will not
power up unless it is grounded.

PS: All my spark picture of the N. Teslathon on Saturday (The day I went)
were ruined except one. If anyone has some nice spark pictures, I would like
to recieve them. ye can send to garryfre-at-pacbell-dot-net. Thanks kindly.