The principle behind the Tesla coil is to achieve a phenomenon called resonance. This happens when the primary coil shoots the current into the secondary coil at just the right time to maximize the energy transferred into the secondary coil. Think of it as timing when to push someone on a swing in order to make it go as high as possible. Setting up a Tesla coil with an adjustable rotary spark gap gives the operator more control over the voltage of the current it produces.
This is how coils can create crazy lightning displays and can even be set up to play music timed to bursts of current. Radios and televisions still use variations of the Tesla coil today. Follow Kelly Dickerson on Twitter.
Original article on Live Science. Live Science. We retired the traditional interrupter device earlier this century. The controller is simply a USB composite device designed for two-way communication with the Tesla coil. The Thundermouse uses an innovative yet simple to use primary current envelope shaping interface. The control interface is similar to an ADSR. All settings can be changed in real-time with MIDI. Ron Johnson — December 25, After buying a kit from ArcAttack, I got a chance to finally.
It took some effort to build mine from assembling parts to troubleshooting , but now I have a permanent display in my house that uses an Arduino processor that sends a midi signal out through a MIDI interface to an organ pedalboard. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Thundermouse Tesla Coil Kit quantity.
Rated 5. I found these L-shaped metal pieces somewhere in the house, and came up with a idea. I asked my Dad for more, and he took out an entire box of it. And I bought 2 solid plastic rulers to act as the support, and it also provides precise measurements for the distance of the spark gap. The spark gap has to be tuned to allow the Tesla Coil to achieve its maximum performance. To do this, I connected the spark gap only to the V transformer.
From there, I adjusted the distance between the electrodes such that I achieve the maximum distance of the spark gap, which corresponds to the maximum voltage passing through. The primary coil and the main tank capacitor form the primary resonant circuit. For proper operation, a Tesla Coil must have identical primary and secondary resonant frequencies. The total number of turns required depends on the values of the other circuit components, but a maximum of turns would be a good number.
Copper tubing, normally used for central heating systems, is ideal for making primary coils. This is what I will be using to support the tubing. If you use wood, it should be dried out and sealed with varnish to ensure it acts as an insulator. Following which, I drilled holes in all the strips which will be where the copper tubings go through. So I sat down in front of the TV and started to thread the supports through the copper coil. Many weeks later, when I successfully tested the tested coil, I managed to achieve cm arcs… but the performance of the tesla coil was limited.
The problem was with the primary coil. I had the primary coil tapped at coil number 8, with improving performance as the number of turns increase. My primary coil, sadly enough, was a total of only 8 turns. If I had a longer copper tubing, thus more turns in the primary coil, I should be able to squeeze out a lot more performance.
So, I bought a new foot copper tubing for my new primary coil. Compared to my foot old primary coil, this should never run out of turns for me to tap from. Spent an entire afternoon working at it. After 4 hours of sawing, drilling, hammering. I did do it a little different this time, because I learned from experience. Threading through the supports was going to be painfully tediously, so I got smart and did it a different way.
Instead of threading it through, I simply made tight ridges with small openings in the supports. There are two electrical connections to be made to the primary coil; a fixed connection at one end of the coil and a movable tapping point, to connect to any point on the coil. This is what enables us to tune the frequency of the primary tank circuit to match the natural resonance of the secondary circuit. The moveable primary tap connection was made from a fuse holder.
It was designed to take fuses but with a bit of careful bending with pliers, a good connection to the copper pipe is possible. It actually took a lot of modifications for me to get it to connect well with the thick copper wire. The fixed connection is made by twisting the inner end of the copper tubing downwards, and I taped on a wire lug to ensure good electrical contact.
So a few weeks ago almost a month actually , I got my Dad to do up a stand for it. I described to him what I wanted: Two-decks, 4 supports, on wheels. After a week or two, he got it done, but I kept requesting for minor fixes and changes.
It was looking really ugly with yellow, white, gray and brown. The 4 supports are PVC pipes, and the wooden blocks are used to hold things in place. I spent almost 2 days mounting the Tesla Coil permanently into the stand. I had to drilled more holes, add more wooden blocks to hold stuffs in place, drill in hooks, adjust the length of wires to fit the structure nicely, etc, and finally spray painting it white again.
A hook to hold the long ground wire and the ground copper rod. All cables are insulated with fish tank tubing, and adjusted shorter to keep it neat and tidy. The transformer alone is possibly heavier than the rest of the Tesla Coil. I made a lot of test runs with the whole setup assembled, and about half of them were failures.
But I will not document all of them. Instead, only the successful tests are found below. The spark gap was not tuned at all, but I fired up the full setup anyway. Primary coil was tapped at turn 7. The spark gap was sparking very loud; dangerous thing to stare at as it produces ultraviolet rays. But the awesome spark at the discharge terminal is much, much more beautiful. Wonderful performance! Finally, first light from the discharge terminal! I measured the diameter of the toroid discharge terminal, compared it to the spark length in the photo, and estimated it to be a 8 cm.
The 8 cm arc photographed is therefore about , V. This is, of course, quite inaccurate as the value differs with many factors such as electric field, shape of electrodes, atmospheric conditions, etc. In theory, it is also possible to work out the voltage by calculations. Inductance of secondary coil, Lsec, is calculated to be 8. Inductance of primary coil, Lpri, is calculated to be This formula somehow gives my coil a poor max spark length of 16 cm.
I always hate hammering the ground rod. My backyard garden qualifies as a golf course now. The breakout point is simply an uninteresting aluminum rod taped to the toroid. The streamers would erupt from this breakout point, rather than sparking around randomly. Stupid me. The result? Serious sparking as the current attempts to complete the circuit.
They can send voltage spikes back into the building wiring and potentially destroy anything that's plugged in. You'll have to restrict access to the area around the Tesla coil and constantly watch it - which is often impractical. While it's possible to mitigate some of these risks, a Tesla coil can never be made completely safe, and making it as safe as possible will make an already difficult project even more difficult.
Proper grounding can be difficult. A ground rod is the best solution, but pounding one in and running a line to it may not be possible. Tesla coils tend to require a lot of adjustments and they often break down. Operating one safely, and keeping it running will require a fairly high degree of electronics knowledge and experience.
When all the potential safety issues, legal issues and practical issues are considered, it becomes clear that a science fair is not a good venue for a Tesla coil. A solid state Tesla coil may be a possible alternative, but they share most of the same issues with classic Tesla coils. I recommend considering a Jacob's ladder. However, a Jacob's ladder still poses many safety issues. Move the primary coil closer to the secondary coil unless you see racing arcs on the secondary coil.
Increase the size of the top load. An average sized Tesla coil that generates 2' to 4' arcs typically operates on about watts.
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