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Registered Member #1225
Joined: Sat Jan 12 2008, 01:24AM
Location: Beaumont, Texas, USA
Posts: 2253
a good beginners disign would be a 555 oscillating at 1.5 mhz. I get around 1 inch arcs with a 20 volt transformer and 3 12 volt batteries(2 batteries are almost dead). If you use a solderless breadboard do not use a capacitor unless you tesla coil has a different resonant frequency.my bread board has just enough capacitance between the two metal wire connector things. You can go much higher than 40 volts. I am going to try 120 volts tommorow! I will post some videos on youtube later. I use a 9 volt battery for running the 555.my setup pulls 1.20 amps when breakout occurs and 1.40 amps when i draw arc. Be careful though because this thing will eat into your skin so deep you bleed!(it happened to me....I swear!)if you let it arc to you for long. And it hurts!i haven't even tuned it yet though. By the way to get real performance out of it connect a capacitor of a few nf depending on your coil and driving frequency between the drain and source of irfp460. Also use a smoothing capacitor across the - and + supply if you use a transformer. i used a 470 uf 200 volt electrolytic. you may want to use it even if you use a few batteries. I found this out by experimenting. I suggest you use a breadboard at first at least so you can try different capacitors and maybe use a mosfet driver like the ucc37322 or tc4422 and use a gdt (gate drive transformer) and dry a half or fullbridge. Hope this helped someone out there! I would like to see any tesla coils that you make! Make a video or take a picture!
Registered Member #952
Joined: Mon Aug 13 2007, 11:07AM
Location: Finland
Posts: 388
Arcstarter wrote ...
a good beginners disign would be a 555 oscillating at 1.5 mhz. I get around 1 inch arcs with a 20 volt transformer and 3 12 volt batteries(2 batteries are almost dead).
I still think that a simple self-resonating design (Steve W's Micro SSTC) is the best for beginners. However, sometimes you can get pretty good efficiency with that kind of fixed-frequency design. As you said, if it were developed a bit further, it could be pretty good.
Arcstarter wrote ...
By the way to get real performance out of it connect a capacitor of a few nf depending on your coil and driving frequency between the drain and source of irfp460.
That's called Class-E switching . Especially with small, hf coils it can be very efficient.
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Good solid state tesla coil for beginners.
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