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My First SMALL DRSSTC (Now with 4X Secondary Length Performance)

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Angstrom

Wed Mar 25 2009, 04:27AM

Registered Member #1900 Joined: Fri Jan 02 2009, 06:44PM
Location: Texas
Posts: 29

Very nice, great to see the work-in-progress from the teslathon turn into this!

Phillip Slawinski

Wed Mar 25 2009, 04:46AM

Registered Member #1732 Joined: Thu Oct 02 2008, 02:34PM
Location: Huntsville, AL
Posts: 112

Angstrom wrote ...

Very nice, great to see the work-in-progress from the teslathon turn into this!

Thanks! I'd still call this a work in progress. I think the finished product may have little relation to what I brought to the 'thon. Seeing Chris's work really made me want to raise my own standards.

StevenCaton

Thu Mar 26 2009, 01:31AM

Registered Member #1845 Joined: Fri Dec 05 2008, 05:38AM
Location: California
Posts: 211

I'm glad to see you got it working Phillip. What were the problems you had earlier with it?

Seeing Chris's work really made me want to raise my own standards.

me too

Phillip Slawinski

Tue Mar 31 2009, 10:56PM

Registered Member #1732 Joined: Thu Oct 02 2008, 02:34PM
Location: Huntsville, AL
Posts: 112

SteveC wrote ...

I'm glad to see you got it working Phillip. What were the problems you had earlier with it?

Seeing Chris's work really made me want to raise my own standards.

me too

Most of my problems have been due to the driver not functioning correctly. Once I got the driver functioning I ran into problems with my bridge. I didn't have enough spacing, and there were some serious arc-overs. I think the bridge should be fixed now, but I have to wait until I get the rest of the parts for my new Driver on Friday to really run the coil through it's paces.

Bennem

Wed Apr 01 2009, 05:57AM

Registered Member #154 Joined: Sun Feb 12 2006, 04:28PM
Location: Westmidlands, UK
Posts: 260

Phillip Slawinski wrote ...

SteveC wrote ...

I'm glad to see you got it working Phillip. What were the problems you had earlier with it?

Seeing Chris's work really made me want to raise my own standards.

me too

What driver problems did you have?

Phillip Slawinski

Wed Apr 01 2009, 12:46PM

Registered Member #1732 Joined: Thu Oct 02 2008, 02:34PM
Location: Huntsville, AL
Posts: 112

Bennem wrote ...

What driver problems did you have?

Well, I've had a lot of driver problems. I'm building my third driver now. The previous one which I have an image of above was a piece of junk. Solder bridges, cold solders, broken vias, you name it, that board had it. The second driver was much better [used UV sensitive boards instead of toner transfer], but I could never get the OCD working correctly, and recently the whole board just died on me. So, I ordered some professionally made boards from Steve, which arrived Monday. I've got the boards mostly populated (this time with brand new parts), but there are still a few parts I'm waiting for, that won't come until Friday.

Bennem

Wed Apr 01 2009, 04:10PM

Registered Member #154 Joined: Sun Feb 12 2006, 04:28PM
Location: Westmidlands, UK
Posts: 260

Phillip Slawinski wrote ...

Bennem wrote ...

What driver problems did you have?

I ordered some professionally made boards from Steve, which arrived Monday. I've got the boards mostly populated (this time with brand new parts), but there are still a few parts I'm waiting for, that won't come until Friday.

yeah...i've had two of those boards off Steve too......they are excellent!!

keep us posted!

Mel

Phillip Slawinski

Sat Apr 11 2009, 01:35AM

Registered Member #1732 Joined: Thu Oct 02 2008, 02:34PM
Location: Huntsville, AL
Posts: 112

I finally got all my driver issues sorted out. It ran flawlessly the past couple times I ran the coil. I also fixed the problems i was having with with my bridge. I increased the spacing between components and I have had no more flash overs. I was able to coax 15" sparks out of the coil before there was some breakdown between the secondary and ground ring. I took apart the old primary and hacked together a flat primary for testing purposes. This turned out to be a bad idea. The coupling went up quite a bit, and I let some smoke out of my secondary [high secondary base currents]. At this point I had upped the OCD to allow 400A of primary which proved to be too much for the IGBTs to handle. They didn't explode, but they silently stopped working.

So moving forward I've wound a new secondary #30 14"x3.5" This secondary has nearly half the series resistance of my previous secondary, and double the Q factor. I'm also rebuilding the enclosure. The UHMWPE was somewhat ugly, and certainly not very sturdy so I'll be rebuilding the enclosure out of black acrylic. I'll be reducing the primary capacitance so I can drop my primary current down to acceptable levels.

Here are the last spark photos I took.

Killa-X

Sat Apr 11 2009, 01:44AM

Registered Member #1643 Joined: Mon Aug 18 2008, 06:10PM
Location:
Posts: 1039

Very nice results on your tesla coil, Phillip. Can't wait to see what your next coil will result, Nice job at the clean setup :)

Phillip Slawinski

Wed Apr 15 2009, 02:10AM

Registered Member #1732 Joined: Thu Oct 02 2008, 02:34PM
Location: Huntsville, AL
Posts: 112

Wound a new secondary, and built a new primary. Working on getting the coil back to a stage where I can test it. Secondary dimensions 3.5x14 1260T Fo = 240kHz Q = 244

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