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musical tesla coil

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LAN_403

Area51

Fri Jan 08 2010, 01:48PM

Registered Member #2613 Joined: Fri Jan 08 2010, 01:10PM
Location: The Netherlands
Posts: 5

Hi all,

as you can see, I'm new to the forum. The reason i signed up for this forum was because i had a question about a musical Tesla coil. Me and some other people want to build such a thing for the 50th anniversary of our college community of physics. Now we have all tried to find as much information. oOly because we aren't experienced in the ways of electro engineering (and thus also Tsla coils for that matter), we have not got all the information we need (or don't understand it).

we are still trying to find the best way to build a musical Tesla coil (a kind of zeusaphone, rather than just a plasma speaker). Now we've come across some examples of people using musical Tesla coils, and far the most used a DRSSTC. But a friend came across a video where a spark gap Tesla coil was used (i am still waiting for his source) so it can be done
now, my main question is; what is the reason everybody is using a DRSSTC, rather than a SGTC? or better put: what are the disadvantages of using a SGTC for our musical Tesla coil.

thank you for your time
Area51

Daniel Uhrenholt

Fri Jan 08 2010, 04:26PM

Registered Member #125 Joined: Fri Feb 10 2006, 01:52PM
Location: Aalborg, Denmark
Posts: 155

If you don't have any experience in electronics or don't understand it, I would say that a DRSSTC is not the best project for a beginner... And I haven't heard about a musical SGTC before, although this is possible with a DC Resonant Charging Tesla Coil with a powerful DC or stepper motor where you can control the break rate really fast!

There is a lot of things that you have to know to build a musical DRSSTC, as some kind of knowledge about electronics, power electronics and programming microprocessors. And this is not an easy task if you don't have a clue what you are doing.

If I were you, I would say where I'm located and kindly ask for someone who can bring a coil to play some music for the anniversary... Or build a working DRSSTC and then take a look at the MIDI driver that Uzzors made...

Cheers, Daniel Uhrenholt

audio:deviant

Fri Jan 08 2010, 10:07PM

Registered Member #2081 Joined: Wed Apr 15 2009, 11:36AM
Location:
Posts: 78

its just a modern take of a spark gap i reckon and because it digital it makes it easy to interface with and still get large arcs. my first coil was a DRSSTC with runs with a simple arduino to midi. was not an easy task. if you have all your parts already + spares then your on target!

Killa-X

Sat Jan 09 2010, 04:59AM

Registered Member #1643 Joined: Mon Aug 18 2008, 06:10PM
Location:
Posts: 1039

Daniel, Maybe in a complex musical note sheet system. Where you have wood beam, or something that you can run through the sparkgap (Yes, this means very limited song time) and you have different peg lengths and spacings..Would suck yes, but would be fun to see what happens :)

Area51

Mon Jan 11 2010, 06:31PM

Registered Member #2613 Joined: Fri Jan 08 2010, 01:10PM
Location: The Netherlands
Posts: 5

thank you for the reactions. however, I've got a question; what is a DC resonant charging TC? i looked on hvWiki and such, but did not find out what it was.

thanks,
area51

Daniel Uhrenholt

Mon Jan 11 2010, 06:41PM

Registered Member #125 Joined: Fri Feb 10 2006, 01:52PM
Location: Aalborg, Denmark
Posts: 155

When starting Tesla Coiling, a good place to look for information is at Richie Burnetts site

The part with information about DC resonant charging is here:

Have you thought about making a DRSSTC?
With a bit of Googling I am sure you will find the information you need:-) And this is the best choice if you want to play music with sparks, as the MIDI rotary spark gap ain't invented yet;-)

Cheers, Daniel

Area51

Mon Jan 11 2010, 07:59PM

Registered Member #2613 Joined: Fri Jan 08 2010, 01:10PM
Location: The Netherlands
Posts: 5

well, i have to discuss this information with some other people, as well as checking all the possibilities
however, by the looks of it, I got the feeling building a drsstc is a serious challenge for us, and maybe too big of a challenge.
however, we can work our way around it by asking for help / buying a existing and such, but i'm not sure what we're going to do
(by the way, would the MiniBrute be suitable for our project?)

and I've got some idea's about using rotary spark gaps, but those are a bit "amateuristic" (what is the word exactly, as firefox marks it as not being a word).

for instance, I had the idea to use multiple rotary spark gaps (as then each rotary spark gap represents a diferent tone) and then you control through which one of the gaps the current travels. however, this idea represents some difficulties (for example, would this overshoot any realistic budget as there are many gaps/tones needed?)

Renesis

Mon Jan 11 2010, 10:11PM

Registered Member #2028 Joined: Mon Mar 16 2009, 08:13PM
Location: Norway
Posts: 319

Do you need arcs in the order of meters? If not, a SSTC (Solid state tesla coil) would be cheaper to build than a DRSSTC (Dual Resonant SSTC), and be simpler to audio modulate.

+1 on Ritchie's site, its brilliant:

Read through that site and you should know where the main issues are.

for instance, I had the idea to use multiple rotary spark gaps (as then each rotary spark gap represents a diferent tone) and then you control through which one of the gaps the current travels. however, this idea represents some difficulties (for example, would this overshoot any realistic budget as there are many gaps/tones needed?)

Nah, my limited experience with tesla coils tells me that this would be difficult. I dont think altering the BPS (Breaks per second) would give you any audible tones, only noise. The theory behind audio modulated DRSSTC's is simple enough. The analogue sound input is pulse width modulated (Google it), and this digital PWM signal is used to effectively turn the whole tesla coil on and off, really fast. Many stereo amplifiers use the very same principle. The TC itself is operating at frequencies approaching the megahertz range, far beyond the 20KHz limit of our ears. I hope this made sence

Area51

Thu Jan 21 2010, 03:28PM

Registered Member #2613 Joined: Fri Jan 08 2010, 01:10PM
Location: The Netherlands
Posts: 5

Renesis, i wondered, you said an SSTC could also be audio modulated. i have seen some examples of SSTC being audio modulated, but mostly they modulated real music, like from an MP3. we are looking for the audio-modulation like a zeusaphone (audio-modulation by modulating the frequency of the arc output, instead of modulating the power-output of this arc)

in addition, we are looking for nice arcs, and not like a plasma/multi-arc effect (just like on the next picture:

)
(hope you get those explanations, because i don't know if i could do better)

so i wondered if an SSTC could do that? or if we have to make a DRSSTC so we can have the effect we are looking for?

thanks in advance,

grtz, Area51

Goodchild

Thu Jan 21 2010, 05:26PM

Registered Member #2292 Joined: Fri Aug 14 2009, 05:33PM
Location: The Wild West AKA Arizona
Posts: 795

You can use a DR style interrupter with SSTC I have done it before.
For SSTC you could just exclude the PW control and just input
pure MIDI tones into the coil.

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