If you need assistance, please send an email to forum at 4hv dot org. To ensure your email is not marked as spam, please include the phrase "4hv help" in the subject line. You can also find assistance via IRC, at irc.shadowworld.net, room #hvcomm.
Support 4hv.org!
Donate:
4hv.org is hosted on a dedicated server. Unfortunately, this server costs and we rely on the help of site members to keep 4hv.org running. Please consider donating. We will place your name on the thanks list and you'll be helping to keep 4hv.org alive and free for everyone. Members whose names appear in red bold have donated recently. Green bold denotes those who have recently donated to keep the server carbon neutral.
Special Thanks To:
Aaron Holmes
Aaron Wheeler
Adam Horden
Alan Scrimgeour
Andre
Andrew Haynes
Anonymous000
asabase
Austin Weil
barney
Barry
Bert Hickman
Bill Kukowski
Blitzorn
Brandon Paradelas
Bruce Bowling
BubeeMike
Byong Park
Cesiumsponge
Chris F.
Chris Hooper
Corey Worthington
Derek Woodroffe
Dalus
Dan Strother
Daniel Davis
Daniel Uhrenholt
datasheetarchive
Dave Billington
Dave Marshall
David F.
Dennis Rogers
drelectrix
Dr. John Gudenas
Dr. Spark
E.TexasTesla
eastvoltresearch
Eirik Taylor
Erik Dyakov
Erlend^SE
Finn Hammer
Firebug24k
GalliumMan
Gary Peterson
George Slade
GhostNull
Gordon Mcknight
Graham Armitage
Grant
GreySoul
Henry H
IamSmooth
In memory of Leo Powning
Jacob Cash
James Howells
James Pawson
Jeff Greenfield
Jeff Thomas
Jesse Frost
Jim Mitchell
jlr134
Joe Mastroianni
John Forcina
John Oberg
John Willcutt
Jon Newcomb
klugesmith
Leslie Wright
Lutz Hoffman
Mads Barnkob
Martin King
Mats Karlsson
Matt Gibson
Matthew Guidry
mbd
Michael D'Angelo
Mikkel
mileswaldron
mister_rf
Neil Foster
Nick de Smith
Nick Soroka
nicklenorp
Nik
Norman Stanley
Patrick Coleman
Paul Brodie
Paul Jordan
Paul Montgomery
Ped
Peter Krogen
Peter Terren
PhilGood
Richard Feldman
Robert Bush
Royce Bailey
Scott Fusare
Scott Newman
smiffy
Stella
Steven Busic
Steve Conner
Steve Jones
Steve Ward
Sulaiman
Thomas Coyle
Thomas A. Wallace
Thomas W
Timo
Torch
Ulf Jonsson
vasil
Vaxian
vladi mazzilli
wastehl
Weston
William Kim
William N.
William Stehl
Wesley Venis
The aforementioned have contributed financially to the continuing triumph of 4hv.org. They are deserving of my most heartfelt thanks.
Registered Member #535
Joined: Sun Feb 18 2007, 06:03AM
Location:
Posts: 65
I have gotten reasonable results with my nst coil. I have given up on my mot(lol). I am thinking about maybe starting a solid state coil. I don't really know anything about them so i have some questions.
1. price of making a solid state coil 2. average spark length of coil. 3. diffulculty level of making one 1-5.
Registered Member #58
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:40AM
Location: Tri-Cities, Washington, US
Posts: 317
Well, to my surprise, just building a small SSTC isn't even that hard. Take a look at stevehv.4hv.org and schematic The cost, well theres the ucc's which can be gotten for a buck a piece, or sampled from ti, only take what you need though.... The hex inverter is not actually needed so don't bother with it, just connect the antenna with the C3 cap and D7 and D8 clamping diodes directly to pin 2 of the ucc's. Then the ferite toroid for the gate drive transformer is fairly cheap, they can be attained for like 1 dollar in a package of 5.
The MOSFETS are also fairly cheap, i use irfp460c's which are a pretty good fet for this coil, most places have em for like 3 bucks a piece. Everything else is pretty cheap and you might have that stuff on hand. Even though i found it fairly easy, if you like to mess around with it, expect to have to replace components alot.... I would say difficulty of the minisstc is a 3, but it can get alot harder with PLL's and such etc. But once you go solid state, you wont go back!!!
Registered Member #56
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:02AM
Location: Southern Califorina, USA
Posts: 2445
sstc are just like sgtcs in the enormous amout of variety in them.
You could take a single gate driver (sample a ucc37322 from TI), stick an antenna on the input, wire the output to just about any fet rated for >1a >50v in series with a 5 turn primary arround a smallish secondary and get 2" sparks for like free.
Or, you could try to outspark the DRTTCs pumping 10 foot arks, for well over a thousand bucks...
Again, difficulty will range from about 3 to a 7 on the 1-5 scale.
My suggstion for a fist coil is It is simple enough to get working, cheap enough for anyone, and will give enough sparkage to get you hooked on SSTC's
Registered Member #180
Joined: Thu Feb 16 2006, 02:12AM
Location: Ontario, Canada
Posts: 187
Hey James, let me start by saying I don't know very much. OK that said I have built a decent (at least I think so) SSTC. I don't know your level of knowledge or experience so I can't really tell you how hard it would be for you to construct one, but I managed and I'm only 18 and all my knowledge is from the internet (mostly 4HV ).
The most simple thing you can do to build your first SSTC, in my own opinion, would be to just completely copy someones. There are plently of schematics around especially on this forum, and if you read around you'll find the pros and cons of each. For a first time coil though I would recomend you keep it simple, I suggest Steve Wards mini SSTC but thats because I built it and it worked great. I actually built Steve Conners PLL circuit as my first SSTC and it worked amazing but its a little tricky and I still don't get it.
As for the price range... I think it's like everything in life, it can be done cheap or it can be done really expensive, or somewhere inbetween it all depends on what you want. You can sample alot of parts for free from different companies, so that would help alot with the cost (semi's are expensive!) especially when your most likely gonna kill alot of parts (I did atleast).
And for the average spark length... I'd say a foot? All depends on power level coil dimension, and topology. But they are hot flamming whispering arcs much different than a normal SGTC. Anyways maybe that will help you to get started, I'd say go for it even if it seems a little intimidating at first, you'll learn alot along the way. Good luck!
Pics are my very first SSTC, and a small percentage of the silicone it took to get going
This site is powered by e107, which is released under the GNU GPL License. All work on this site, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License. By submitting any information to this site, you agree that anything submitted will be so licensed. Please read our Disclaimer and Policies page for information on your rights and responsibilities regarding this site.
solid state versus nst and mots newbie
). 
