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I was wondering if anyone here has read or attempted to build the "miniBrute" mentioned in McCauley's book "DRSSTC Building The Modern Day Tesla Coil". I've read both books and I am currently in the process of gathering the materials necessary to start construction. This will be my first Tesla Coil so I don't know if building this thing will take me over my head. The book seems very straight forward and it is also the most comprehensive book I have found on DRSSTCs. I wanted to hear what you guys had to say on the subject. I considered building a regular SGTC however, they are a bit to noisy for my taste.
I have built this as my third coil. I am also studying electronics in my spare time. Not sure of your abilities but it did tax my knowledge in electronics. I did finish it and got it working. Had to write to Dan several times but be did give me enough help to finish it. Mechanical it was easy for me but my background is in tool and die making and engineering. This is a nice table top coil but not a real strong performer. Great for teaching aid. If you want a coil that performs 3-4 foot arcs continuously.....this may not be your pick. I use mine as a teaching aid and very happy that I built and tested it. demonstrates Tesla's ideas very well in a public setting while maintaining a very safe environment. Here are some pics.
Registered Member #57946
Joined: Mon Nov 16 2015, 08:26AM
Location: Prince George, BC, Canada
Posts: 2
Hi all,
I have finished building all of the miniBrute circuit boards, and had a local plastics supply shop that had some new old stock PVC 1/2" thick plate cut up all of the miniBrute case pieces. I was also able to obtain some very nice grained birch 1/2" thick plywood to make up the 4 wood case pieces. When I originally bought my miniBrute kit from Dan at EVR I tried to also buy the 2 piece panel kit he sold for $59.99 but they were all gone. In the color miniBrute reference design construction book I bought also from EVR there are not-to-full-size scale images of these two panel templates, and I could probably fool around with my laser printer's built-in enlarging capable photocopier to make my own full size panel templates, but thought I'd check first on the forum if another user could please email me them, or email me a weblink to where there may be one.
Registered Member #3450
Joined: Sun Nov 28 2010, 05:01AM
Location:
Posts: 61
I'm just finishing up the last few driver board components and have an issue with the 10uf caps. I have 9 - 10uf caps left to place. 7 electrolytic and 2 Tantalum. The problem is the schematic that was sent with the kit says C4,C5 and C6 are all Tantalum but the kit was only supplied with 2. C6 is a DC blocking cap so I cannot use an electrolytic... Also the photo in the book shows all the 10uf caps as Tantalum..
Registered Member #9614
Joined: Mon Jan 14 2013, 10:00PM
Location:
Posts: 44
Just recently got my 'minibrute' working again. Apart from the primary and secondary parameters, the thing is hardly a minibrute anymore. A while back the minibloc IGBTs shorted, dumping the energy from the bus caps into the GDT thus making it explode. Took out the original driver too.
So I threw in a CM200 and redid all of the electronics:
Registered Member #9614
Joined: Mon Jan 14 2013, 10:00PM
Location:
Posts: 44
Oops sorry for the double post :(
Just recently got my 'minibrute' working again. Apart from the primary and secondary parameters, the thing is hardly a minibrute anymore. A while back the minibloc IGBTs shorted, dumping the energy from the bus caps into the GDT thus making it explode. Took out the original driver too.
So I threw in a CM200 and redid all of the electronics:
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Minibrute Construction Thread / FAQs
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