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hello all, this little project has got me wanting to build one. ive been trying to locate some camera transformers with minimal luck. boots dont give them out and the local camera place closed down not long ago. would something like this do it what are the transformers voltage out?
secondary is constructed just about to get started on the electrics just cant find a damn used disposable camera!
Registered Member #154
Joined: Sun Feb 12 2006, 04:28PM
Location: Westmidlands, UK
Posts: 260
Hi James,
I beleive the transformers in your link are just pulse 2:1:1 ratio transformers, they are designed for switching thyristors and triacs, i used them in my solid state variac. see if jessops have any old discarded disposable cameras they are willing to let you have?
see if jessops have any old discarded disposable cameras they are willing to let you have?
alright mel how do.. i just bought some cheap ones in the end! just waiting for some caps and diodes now! was just wondering what the coil part that connects to the flash is? i presume i dont need this?
how do i link the two flash boards? sorry i cant see how that bit works.. in that first picture are the transistors glued to the transformers? cant seem them in that pic.
Registered Member #952
Joined: Mon Aug 13 2007, 11:07AM
Location: Finland
Posts: 388
audio:deviant wrote ...
was just wondering what the coil part that connects to the flash is? i presume i dont need this?
If you mean the tiny transformer thing (the smaller one), it isn't needed. It's a trigger transformer which is used to create a high voltage (like thousand of volts) to ionise the gas in the flash tube to trigger the flash.
audio:deviant wrote ...
how do i link the two flash boards? sorry i cant see how that bit works.. in that first picture are the transistors glued to the transformers? cant seem them in that pic.
In fact when I built the circuit, I did a bit of reverse-engineering to figure out what parts are needed for the flyback circuit to work. In this case they were the transformer, a resistor, a transistor and a diode for rectification. Then I desoldered the components and rebuilt the circuit to get it a compact as possible. The transistors are just hanging on the sides of the transformers.
yeah ive been working on a bit of reverse engineering! looks much better when its smaller.
ive just been trying to get the thing working, managed to get a good arc over the spark gap about 1.5mm for now i hooked up a cap 0.33uf 2000v its a 42l3332 cap. the arc across the gap disappeared and then let off one massive bang! and one of the transistors got massively hot.. what could be causing this? tuning?
Registered Member #952
Joined: Mon Aug 13 2007, 11:07AM
Location: Finland
Posts: 388
audio:deviant wrote ...
ive just been trying to get the thing working, managed to get a good arc over the spark gap about 1.5mm for now i hooked up a cap 0.33uf 2000v its a 42l3332 cap. the arc across the gap disappeared and then let off one massive bang! and one of the transistors got massively hot.. what could be causing this? tuning?
Most likely the cap is just too big. It takes a while for the transformers to charge the cap and then it discharges with a loud bang. I used a 1nF cap which is 330 times smaller than yours. A discharged cap is like a dead short, so maybe that's why your transistor is getting hot.
audio:deviant wrote ...
also what should the secondary be grounded to?
I didn't ground my secondary anywhere.
As a conclusion, read carefully through this thread and see what other people have done. Zenador and Voltwad built similar little coils and uploaded some pics of them here too. You may also want to study some theory about general electronics and Tesla cois.
I wrote the "tutorial" (link on the first page) two years ago (I was 13 back then) so it may be a little... childish. But it still has some useful information. And, as already said, look at the other people's work shown in this thread. My coil was originally just built of some scrap/leftover parts, and it was quite a sketchy one after all.
I'm not an active electronics hobbyist at all nowadays, and my knowledge about electronics is limited. Also I haven't had the coil assembled for a long time, but I'll try to give the best help I can.
P.S. Google and HvWiki will be your friends in many cases too.
sorry i should have posted a reply saying i got the thing working just using one transformer. managed to find a few smaller caps. and a massive primary! still needs a bit of tinkering. the transistor was getting hot due to problems with linking multiple transformers been struggling with this one! made this circuit (cheers Voltwad) with no luck. and had a look at a couple of the other project pictures but its not that clear. Looking at a 2 or 4 transformer set up. i dont know if im being weird on this one but i cant seem to get it working, very annoying.
voltwad is it noticeably more effective having a full way CW?
mod edit oversized images
thanks for the tutorial and project idea dr! think i had less problems with my drsstc!
Registered Member #1829
Joined: Sun Nov 30 2008, 01:06AM
Location: Raleigh N.C.
Posts: 74
Hm, Well, I never actually tried paralleling two transformers on a 1/2 wave cw. I figured inverting one was a novel way to do it because if the transformers aren't perfectly matched, some of the energy from one will wash through the other and vice versa if they're paralleled. And these are supposed to be cheap, disposable circuits after all. If you got it working with one transformer and a 1/2 wave then try hooking up your coil. Bring the coil ground to the load and see if you get any nice arcs. Also, if you can post any schema, that will help in debugging.
Registered Member #338
Joined: Thu Mar 23 2006, 12:28PM
Location:
Posts: 41
This is "Great!" I wish that more people would post about mini's.I try to educate people about Tesla and his coils,you would be suprised how many people don't know anything about this.I like it because it is portable. thank you very much
Hm, Well, I never actually tried paralleling two transformers on a 1/2 wave cw. I figured inverting one was a novel way to do it because if the transformers aren't perfectly matched, some of the energy from one will wash through the other and vice versa if they're paralleled. And these are supposed to be cheap, disposable circuits after all. If you got it working with one transformer and a 1/2 wave then try hooking up your coil. Bring the coil ground to the load and see if you get any nice arcs. Also, if you can post any schema, that will help in debugging.
right ive got a max of round about 1/2 cm of action at the moment. this is running one xfmr at 3v the secondary is pretty small as you can see in the pic its made out of a pen. using half cw 6 stage 1nf 1kv caps. the cap bank is a 2 1nf 2kv. iv grounded the secondary to the cap bank actually made quite a big difference. im going to mess with the tuning a bit more but it seems to be at its optimum.
i do seem to be having problems with the limiting resistor at the end of the cw arcing over. its a resistor from the flash board 1.5m
have you got a full schematic of your set up? voltwad. i would like to use 2 xfmr's or at least get some bigger arcs! how do i link them up in parallel otherwise?
formatted my comp lately so i havent got anything to draw a schematic at the moment.
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Small Tesla Coil using disposable camera transformers
