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Registered Member #5300
Joined: Thu Jun 14 2012, 12:00AM
Location: California
Posts: 31
EDIT for solution:
Chased the voltage starting from the outlet. Turned out my power cable had burnt itself out. A new cable saved the day! Hope this'll help someone else out.
~~~ I've been working on the OneTesla for a few months now. After continuing to blow fuses and IGBT's with no successful runs, I started a new board over from scratch, retaining my secondary and primary coils and two bus capacitors.
I managed to get the coil working for the first time on my first run with the new board. I ran it at a fixed frequency for about 10 seconds at 20% power, let it sit for 10 minutes, then ran it for 60 seconds playing a song at 20% power. It worked like a charm at first! (Check the video link below.) Eventually it randomly shut off. Laptop was fine, still playing; MIDI was still being sent out and received by the controller; and the indicator LED on the main board was flashing correctly. If you listen closely, there is a faint click at the end of the video after the coil shuts off--not sure what that was, but it might be something.
I blew my IGBT's, but the fuse didn't blow. The primary and IEC cable used to energize the board were very warm to the touch.
I've replaced the IGBT's, power diodes, and IC's. I tested all voltages, and they read as they should except for my bus voltage across the power diodes. It's registering in the mV range and slowly creeps it's way up: After about 60 seconds, I was only at 7.5mV.
All of my components are testing as good. The only suspicious things are that my 15V regulator is outputting only 14.80V, and my bus voltage is extremely low.
I'm wondering if any of you might be able to help me with this.
1. Why did my coil fail and how can I prevent this from happening again? 2. Why can't I get it working again?
I suspect it might be my bus capacitors (the big black ones in the images below), but I find it hard to believe they would fail since they seem pretty robust.
Here's an album of photos of my build (sorry for the low quality), and here's a youtube video of the first light (skip to about 50 seconds in to miss the fluff). Finally, here's a link to the thread on the OneTesla forum which I have had little luck on.
Hope all that information is helpful! This is only my second DRSSTC, so please excuse any glaring ignorance. Let me know if I can supply anything else to help out.
Registered Member #10052
Joined: Thu Feb 07 2013, 11:31PM
Location: Overland Park, Kansas
Posts: 78
The OneTesa driver layout is VERY bare-bones.
There is no over-current protection, and since I'm guessing you don't have a scope, you can't see what your primary currents are doing, or what the peak current is. The primary current envelope also provides clues as to the tuning of the system.
It is very difficult to build a DRSSTC without an oscilloscope. If you know anybody who owns a scope, wind a current transformer, and borrow it.
That in mind, your coil is probably simply out of tune. This is a major drawback of a design in which the primary can't be tapped.
Tuning problems reduce coupling between the primary and secondary circuit, causing primary currents to ring up very quickly. The OneTesla driver has no over-current protection, so it will go on its merry way driving the bridge to destruction.
IGBTs fail short, which means that they turn into a resistance across the bus capacitors. This instantaneous current draw (and the proximity to an exploding component) can damage the capacitors and mains rectifier, which could be causing low buss voltage. Electrolytic caps tend to fail open, and don't always quit working completely upon failure, complicating a diagnosis.
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One Tesla Build -- Capacitor Troubles
