TLG Windpower Products
Grounding your tower / pole

This page may provide you with the most valuable information, by valuable I mean it may save you a lot of money and heartache.

If you understand what lightning is looking for you can better prevent it from making your tower a target.
Lightning, although runs from the ground to the positive source it does not really like "ground".  It likes static.  Static is what excites it and invites it to pay your house a visit.

Theory behind this:
Have you ever seen a "green tree" that has been struck by lightning?  Careful now...  I am not talking about a tree that has some green leaves on it...  I am talking about a very healthy full of moisture green tree...  It doesn't happen...
The ones that you've seen that have been struck and had the bark blown clean off of it generally have a tall dead branch or branches in it and it is the dead branch that were struck...
The dead branches build static in and around them and that attracts the lightning.
Why do golfers get struck by lightning?  We all know they are not grounded.  Even wearing shoes with the steel cleats does not ground them, there is rubber between the cleats and their feet.  Its that club that they are swinging that produces lightning inviting static.

What I do to prevent static build up on my towers is this:
I use solid copper ground wire #8, a copper rod, and copper clamping hardware that you can buy from most any hardware store.
I drive a long copper rod into the ground trying to reach the water table (if at all possible).  Around hear it is 5 to 12 foot most of the year.  Once you drive a copper rod into the ground all you have to do is run the copper wire from the rod in the ground to the tower and get a good connection to the tower. 

Now your tower is protected so we need to address the isolated wires you have running up the tower from the batteries to the generator itself.
I hook the ground side of the battery bank to the tower which is well grounded.  This helps to prevent static from building up on the leads coming down the tower.
If you want to go one step further you can run a small wire up the tower to hook to your Yaw bracket so you can ground the frame of your bird as well.
That's it..  You just did all I know to do to help prevent lightning from striking your tower.

Last Spring I was in the garage talking to my daughter when all the sudden our conversation was interrupted by a blinding flash of light along with an instantaneous Tea spilling boom. (maybe I threw it) ;)  Anyway, the lightning struck the transformer across the street from my home.  This pole that the transformer is on is about 125 feet from my tower and stands only about 25 feet tall.  My tower is about 50 foot in the air and nothing on the tower was touched.
With that I am fairly satisfied that the above described grounding system worked for me.

Feel free to seek out other advise on this issue as I am not claiming to be an expert in lightning.

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