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Registered Member #8120
Joined: Thu Nov 15 2012, 06:06PM
Location: Moscow, Russia
Posts: 94
Hello. I always found it interesting to build small coils that do interesting stuff off batteries than large multi-KW designs that i don't even have a place to plug in. There seem to be little info on small scale designs, and searching for small, mini, micro TC usually still result in mains powered monstrosities.
So, how do different TC designs scale down, and what kind of a design would be best? Constraints: 2-4AA batteries or 9V battery as a power source, 10-20cm coil size. What i have found out so far:
SGTC: Full success. Powered by 2AA batteries through a fly swatter or shocker transformer, gives 5-10cm sparks at 1-2bps or 1 cm at dozens of bps. 20x5 secondary coil with a small sphere top load, early version: Running off a shocker transformer: So far the best design to scale down, but requires an exotic component - battery powered HV transformer.
SSTC: Simple one transistor SSTC performs surprisingly well. Powered by one 9V battery, runs CW in low MHz range. Schematic: 12 by 2 cm secondary coil with no top load: Lights up the lights well: But does not give much of a spark: The 2 mm spark is very hot, and will cut through many things. I consider this design a success, since it's a nice handheld induction igniter for all kinds of lamps.
DRSSTC: Failed miserably. Trying to stay below 300kHz resulted in a rather large coil. Powered by two 9V batteries - one providing 15V for the logic, the other providing up to 180V to the bridge (boost converters). It worked somewhat nicely in CW mode at 18V input, with 5mm sparks that burn through stuff, but any attempts at interrupted work resulted in microscopic results. I expected that if i charge the capacitors to 200V and do one pulse a few dozen us long then i should get a single streamer just as good as if i was running from the mains, but this just does not happening. Are there any tricks to get DRSSTC working in small scale?
In general my question is - are there TC designs that would perform well off a few AA batteries and 10-20cm coil?
Registered Member #162
Joined: Mon Feb 13 2006, 10:25AM
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 3140
I have played with a battery powered sgtc, the nice thing is that you can trade bangs-per-second for energy-per-bang, I used a small inverter from a photocopier to run a 4" dia x 12" secondary at 1.4 W average dc input power, just under 1 bps but a good long spark and loud bangs, didn't use forced air for the spark gap.
I guess any battery powered TC will have similar a tradeoff - no reason why a drsstc cant have a large dc bus capacitor other than low bps and power consumption of the controller etc.
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Which TC design scales down the best?
