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I have just started getting into high voltage, and it seems like the easiest way to get 50 kV or so at moderate powers (400-1kW) seems to be a large ignition coil plus an ignition coil driver. Due to the application of ignition coils, there are not a whole bunch of scaled up ignition coils.
So i was thinking of making my own, but have not got started on the project yet, because i'm not sure if it would be ideal for the voltages and powers that I am trying to get.
I just wanted to get some fairly thick magnet wire, a laminated steel rod, and do a rough estimation of coil based on how many initial winds there are (first layer), the increase in diameter from the previous (layer), and so on.
I would be very appreciative if someone could help me determine a good gauge of magnet wire, diameter of the laminated core, the oil, and a neat, scaled up "ignition coil" looking case to put it in!
Registered Member #135
Joined: Sat Feb 11 2006, 12:06AM
Location: Anywhere is fine
Posts: 1735
Hope this doesn't scare you too much... but the wire in the ignition coil is finer then a human hair, probably 500 turns per layer, and maybe 100 layers!
I still have a small core I took apart so I could use the magnet wire.
So if you had on hand 32 AWG or 38 AWG for making a spark gap coil you'll need several pounds of wire, a winder ( because doing it by hand is a waste of a few weeks... seriously, and if you break the wire you have to start over! ), and there's no telling how big its going to be after you're done because 400W to 1kw is too large a margin for design.
1.) save some money, then buy an X-ray transformer.
You have no idea how much money you will save just buying the transformer, trust me, I have made a few, it's not like a kit project.
Registered Member #152
Joined: Sun Feb 12 2006, 03:36PM
Location: Czech Rep.
Posts: 3384
There was my idea of easy HV transformer, wound on a big rod core and driven at a higher frequency (~1kHz?) with a half-bridge or resonant driver. You could maybe get a few volts per turn so the turn count would not need to be extremely high (~10k?) to get 50kv.
Registered Member #72
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 08:29AM
Location: UK St. Albans
Posts: 1659
You can ram a lot of power through an ignition coil. Given the way they are used, they run at very low duty cycle, running one CW should get you 400W easily. It would generate more heat than could be dissipated continuously, but you'd get a run time of 10s of seconds to minutes out of one before it got too hot. I suggest you buy an ignition coil and play with that for a bit. Being made for the auto market, they have very high reliability - far higher than military stuff (people dying from a military failure is par for the course, but if one in 10,000 or your cars fail then you lose market share), so they are very over-designed and robust. When you do finally manage to push it too hard and it lets out the magic smoke, you can buy another identical one, so it's not as precious as something you spent months winding.
Registered Member #1790
Joined: Fri Oct 31 2008, 10:10AM
Location: Sydney, Australia
Posts: 40
I think there are much easier ways of generating the voltage at the power you need, if your into winding large coils you'll probably be better of winding a new secondary for a large flyback and running it with a half bridge or ' Mazzilli ZVS driver '. in this way you could put a few homemade flybacks in series to achive the desired voltage and power levels. You would also need to put it under oil too, here is a link that gives you good info for this topic.
An even easier thing to do would be to run a few iggy's in parralel and drive them from a half bridge.
Also if your just getting into HV electronics you should try to avoid playing with such dangerous voltages at the current they will output, it has more chance of killing you than an NST which are lethal in some cases.
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large, hand wound "ignition coil"?
