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Registered Member #30
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706
Measuring the output of a Tesla coil is difficult, for three reasons:
1) The voltage is very high. Coils I've built ranged from 180kV (for a small tabletop coil) to 600kV for a large coil that put out 2 meter sparks. 2) The frequency is high, needing a properly compensated probe. 3) Any capacitance added to the Tesla coil will knock it out of tune. Therefore DanMcCauley's design would be useless with its large compensating caps.
Here are some methods I've used:
1) Reduce the break rate of the coil to one bang per second or less, and measure the distance it can spark. Use published tables, suitable for the spark gap geometry you use, to convert the distance to voltage. (This only gives a rough estimate, and goes totally wrong at high break rates.)
2) Find the inductance and resonant frequency of the secondary, then measure secondary base current with a scope, and use Ohm's law: V=I*XL. You're using the secondary as its own HV probe.
3) Connect up a HV probe, and retune the coil so it's in tune with the probe in circuit.
4) Simulate your coil using LTSpice or whatever, and read off the voltage from that.
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measuring TC output voltage
