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Registered Member #55960
Joined: Fri Jul 24 2015, 12:11PM
Location: Bangalore, India
Posts: 10
Hello everyone. I am a high school student in India and I've been really interested in Tesla coils ever since I got to sit in the Faraday cage during the Tesla Coil demo at the Science Center Singapore. I never was able to build one due to the lack of availability of parts like NSTs and high voltage caps for the MMC. I recently discovered solid state Tesla coils and realised they fit my requirements very well. The parts are relatively cheap as well as easily available here. To get started, I built a simple slayer exciter with one transistor. Now I want to build a full blown SSTC based on the Kaizer SSTC 1 or 2.
I want to thank Mr. Mads Barnkob for the excellent writeup as well as the schematic. I also want to thank Loneoceans. His website made it so much easier for me to understand the working of an SSTC.
So far I have built the logic circuit for this coil. I'm waiting for access to an oscilloscope so I can test it (shouldn't be long). I got the UCC3732x ICs as free samples from Texas Instruments (thanks!) and now I need to build the bridge as well as the actual coil.
Now that my long winded introduction is done. These are my questions for now:
1. Safety. I wanted to ask about some of the safety concerns around this coil (apart from more common stuff like ozone production, high voltages around the bridge rectifier etc.)
2. I've managed to lay my hands on some 3mm dia plastic conduit. Can I cover it with aluminium tape and use it as a top load (with an appropriate breakout point)?
3. I've ordered these for the gate drive transformer. Will they work? I haven't been able to find a local source for large ferrite toroids.
4. How do I avoid blowing the fuses at home? The secondary goes to mains ground right?
Registered Member #42796
Joined: Mon Jan 13 2014, 06:34PM
Location:
Posts: 195
SK1701 wrote ...
3. I've ordered these for the gate drive transformer. Will they work? I haven't been able to find a local source for large ferrite toroids.
3.you need a high permeability core 3C90 or higher you should avoid powder iron or similar cores (the listing does not give much details only "green iron") you don't rly need such a big core
Hello everyone. I am a high school student in India and I've been really interested in Tesla coils ever since I got to sit in the Faraday cage during the Tesla Coil demo at the Science Center Singapore. I never was able to build one due to the lack of availability of parts like NSTs and high voltage caps for the MMC. I recently discovered solid state Tesla coils and realised they fit my requirements very well. The parts are relatively cheap as well as easily available here. To get started, I built a simple slayer exciter with one transistor. Now I want to build a full blown SSTC based on the Kaizer SSTC 1 or 2.
I want to thank Mr. Mads Barnkob for the excellent writeup as well as the schematic. I also want to thank Loneoceans. His website made it so much easier for me to understand the working of an SSTC.
So far I have built the logic circuit for this coil. I'm waiting for access to an oscilloscope so I can test it (shouldn't be long). I got the UCC3732x ICs as free samples from Texas Instruments (thanks!) and now I need to build the bridge as well as the actual coil.
Now that my long winded introduction is done. These are my questions for now:
1. Safety. I wanted to ask about some of the safety concerns around this coil (apart from more common stuff like ozone production, high voltages around the bridge rectifier etc.)
2. I've managed to lay my hands on some 3mm dia plastic conduit. Can I cover it with aluminium tape and use it as a top load (with an appropriate breakout point)?
3. I've ordered these for the gate drive transformer. Will they work? I haven't been able to find a local source for large ferrite toroids.
4. How do I avoid blowing the fuses at home? The secondary goes to mains ground right?
Thank you.
Hello and welcome to the forum!
First off just wanted to say that I'm glad that you were inspired by the big coil in Singapore (I'm from Singapore!). Also glad that you found my page useful. Anyway, answering your questions:
1. What were the safety concerns you had? One of the most dangerous aspects with a small coil like this and for a beginning coiler is that you'll be using the mains as the power source for the coil. This can be extremely dangerous, so I urge you to do a proper job with the wiring and ask someone who has more experience if you're not sure about anything. The capacitors in the main DC bus are also extremely dangerous when charged up, so be sure to add some sort of bleeder resistor across. Also, adding a fuse usually helps as well in case you have some transistor failure.
2. Are you talking about the toroid? Yes you can use flexible PVC ducting as a toroid when covered with aluminium tape. See my other earlier pages (e.g. Tesla Coil 1 and 2) on how I made my aluminium tape toroids.
3. The toroid you linked are powered iron toroids and not ferrite toroids, and they will not work. You'll need ferrite cores for the GDT, and my SSTC 2 page describes an easy way to find out if the core is suitable. Do you have access to say Digikey, Mouser, Element14, RS electronics or Farnell online? If so I can recommend a few cores which would work.
4. Ideally the bottom of the secondary should go to a dedicated ground (e.g. copper rod literally hammered into the ground). However, if the grounding in your house is good and you have a small coil, it's usually ok to ground it to mains ground. This hasn't got anything to do with the fuses in your home, but if your wall socket is one of the newer GFI sockets which sense ground current, then you cannot use those since the return current will cause the GFI to turn off power.
Feel free to ask more questions and good luck with your coil. :)
Registered Member #55960
Joined: Fri Jul 24 2015, 12:11PM
Location: Bangalore, India
Posts: 10
Thank you for the replies. I really appreciate the help.
@loneoceans your website is a great inspiration. It has some great content. Did you by any chance build the smaller coil in the Science Center? The musical one? Is that your DRSSTC 2
1. What would be an appropriate value for the fuse? I will be using a 10A bridge rectifier so can I go for a 12-15A fuse? I need to calculate the value of the bleeder resistor but I am not sure of the value of the capacitor I have. I got it from a local electronics store and it is pretty big. It is in a white case with no markings. I also know that it can take mains voltages (I tested it and it creates a nice big spark). I have to ask them what the capacity is and decide whether or not to risk using such a spurious part. What sort of discharge time should I factor in to the calculation for the bleeder resistor?
2. Thanks. That is really helpful. I will build my toroid like that then. Is there any particular advantage of using 2 toroids? My toroid seems smaller than the one used in the Kaizer so is there anything I need to be aware of?
3. If you can recommend an element14 or Digikey part number I may be able to get it from here or a local digikey dealer (ince shipping from the US is too expensive otherwise). The core should be able to accommodate up to 5 coils on it since I may go with a full bridge configuration.
4. I don't know if will be able to ground it outside, but I can definitely wire it to mains ground. My wall sockets definitely do not have GFI, so that shouldn't be a problem.
Thank you for the replies. I really appreciate the help.
@loneoceans your website is a great inspiration. It has some great content. Did you by any chance build the smaller coil in the Science Center? The musical one? Is that your DRSSTC 2
1. What would be an appropriate value for the fuse? I will be using a 10A bridge rectifier so can I go for a 12-15A fuse? I need to calculate the value of the bleeder resistor but I am not sure of the value of the capacitor I have. I got it from a local electronics store and it is pretty big. It is in a white case with no markings. I also know that it can take mains voltages (I tested it and it creates a nice big spark). I have to ask them what the capacity is and decide whether or not to risk using such a spurious part. What sort of discharge time should I factor in to the calculation for the bleeder resistor?
2. Thanks. That is really helpful. I will build my toroid like that then. Is there any particular advantage of using 2 toroids? My toroid seems smaller than the one used in the Kaizer so is there anything I need to be aware of?
3. If you can recommend an element14 or Digikey part number I may be able to get it from here or a local digikey dealer (ince shipping from the US is too expensive otherwise). The core should be able to accommodate up to 5 coils on it since I may go with a full bridge configuration.
4. I don't know if will be able to ground it outside, but I can definitely wire it to mains ground. My wall sockets definitely do not have GFI, so that shouldn't be a problem.
Thank you.
I'm not sure which coil you saw but I've made two musical coils and they're currently in the Science Centre.
1. I don't know what sort of power socket you are using, but if you're using a 13A socket you can use a 13A or 10A fuse. What I'm more concerned about is your capacitor - what sort of capacitor do you have? Do you have a picture of it? I would strongly advice you NOT to connect your cap to the mains because it can explode! What capacitor are you referring to - the bus capacitor?
2. There's no need to use 2 toroids. I used two for some of my coils because the capacitance of the first toroid wasn't enough, or I had some spare toroids lying around. Or if you want a different look to your coil. 3 toroids would be fine as well. Otherwise I'll just use one :)
3. Here are two cores which will should work great. You can buy a few and use them for future coils too.
Registered Member #55960
Joined: Fri Jul 24 2015, 12:11PM
Location: Bangalore, India
Posts: 10
1. Yes, it is the bus capacitor. The place where I bought it 'demonstrated' it by plugging it into the mains for less than a second and then shorting the leads to make a pretty big spark (I have successfully replicated this so I'm sure the cap can take the voltage). Here is a photo next to a spool of solder for scale: Unfortunately, I can't tell the polarity of this cap as it has no markings on it. My house has 5A and 15A sockets. I will be running it off the 15A socket. I found a 15A fuse. Will it work? The KAizer webpage mentions that a 27K bleeder resistor was used. Can I use 2 10K 10 Watt wirewound resistors in series?
2. I will either use the plastic conduit method or the method described here.
3. Unfortunately, the Digikey distributor I was planning to order from appears defunct. I will search for other distributors, but would any one of these toroids work?
I don't understand why your electronics shop would do that - that's extremely dangerous. In any case, that's like what Dexter said likely to be a motor starting film capacitor. It's too small to be used as a bus cap; you'll need a proper electrolytic capacitor. You need to understand what the bleeder resistor is for and size it appropriately. 20K 20W will work fine.
May I recommend you begin with a simpler circuit first such as a high voltage Flyback circuit :) There are lots of pages online including my page which outline some simpler circuits to get started. This will help you out in the long run when working on more complex projects like SSTCs. :) Good luck and please be safe!
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Building my first SSTC. Need some pointers
