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Registered Member #3610
Joined: Thu Jan 13 2011, 03:29AM
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 506
You don't need an oscilloscope. It helps, but I didn't use mine when I built my version of his SSTC5. I just wired it up and when I plugged it in, it sprang to life. The nice thing about SSTCs that use an antenna for feedback is that they automatically tune, so for the most part you build them and they just work.
That was the first one I made. Simple, cheap, fast to build and still pretty fun to play with. No need for a scope either, hook everything up and it will work. Doesn't get much simpler and easier than that.
Not much of a discharge, but still fun for lighting up fluorescent tubes, neons, lightbulbs and what haveyou. Also works great as a cigarette lighter.
Registered Member #3610
Joined: Thu Jan 13 2011, 03:29AM
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 506
Anywhere you can find it. I've bought spools of magnet wire from sellers on ebay, I've found it at a local surplus place, and I've salvaged it from various solenoids, relays, and motors. The cooling fan motor from a discarded microwave oven came apart easily and netted enough #32 wire to wind a small Tesla secondary.
I've tried the SSTC5 board I built with several different secondaries of various sizes and while some worked better than others, it made sparks with all of them. It really is not hard to get something to work.
You could make a functional Tesla coil by winding some salvaged wire on a paper towel tube. Maybe not a great one, but you could make one that worked. The challenge is optimizing, and making it look attractive.
Registered Member #1403
Joined: Tue Mar 18 2008, 06:05PM
Location: Denmark, Odense C
Posts: 1968
Hi Tom
My first Tesla coil was a small SGTC and it gave me high value experience in tuning, corona supression and performance enhancement that I do not believe you will go through with a self tuning SSTC,
It was build mostly from old and salvaged parts... take a look:
Registered Member #3610
Joined: Thu Jan 13 2011, 03:29AM
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 506
You certainly will learn more from having to tune it, although on the flip side, there is a greater chance of discouragement of it not working, as well as you need more exotic parts (HV transformer, capacitors, etc) not insurmountable in the least, but definitely not as straightforward as a basic SSTC.
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first tesla coil
