Questions tagged [tesla-coil]
A Tesla coil is an electrical resonant transformer circuit invented by Nikola Tesla around 1891. It is used to produce high-voltage, low-current, high frequency alternating-current electricity. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_coil
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Controlling frequency of a Slayer exciter circuit for plasma magnetism tests
I want to build a Slayer exciter circuit from a 48 volts 50 ampere power supply.
I have the necessary transistor, but I want to be able to tune the frequency of the circuit with a Raspberry Pi and ...
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What would happen if a Tesla Coil arcs and touches a nearby 120V AC outlet?
I have a Tesla Coil that looks like this:
If this operated very closely to an AC Outlet, and an arc emerged and touched the outlet, what would happen? Would the unit short-circuit and explode? Would ...
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Why is my Tesla coil not working?
I'm researching about Tesla coils and I made a prototype for myself two days ago. I benefited from other topics on this website, and Instructables and Quora.
Despite all my trying it didn't work. I'...
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Simulating SSTC Tesla coil circuit is not working well
I am running the following Tesla coil circuit in Open Modelica:
I have implemented the circuit with Open Modelica like this:
But the problem is that the R9 register is not having any voltage or ...
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My Tesla coil is not working
I made a Tesla coil, but it doesn't not work. I used this circuit:
I used 200 turns for the primary coil with 0.5 mm wire and 5 turns for the secondary coil with 1 mm wire on a wooden rod.
Back to ...
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Can you use any vacuum tube in a vacuum tube Tesla coil?
I'm building a vacuum tube Tesla coil (VTTC,) and although I have experience in SGTC (spark gap), there are some questions left unanswered.
When picking a tube for your coil, does it matter which tube ...
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How do I make my Tesla coil more powerful?
I have built a spark gap Tesla coil. It performs pretty well, with 20 cm sparks, but I want it to perform even better.
I use a really cheap mmc that I bought on eBay, and I was wondering if it would ...
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Tesla coil is arcing across the secondary
I built a spark gap Tesla coil and it works great but I have two problems.
My secondary coils is arcing, from the bottom mostly, but also other places and it is damaging the secondary. Is there a ...
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Slayer exciter transistor troubles
I have built a Slayer exciter using a 2N2222, with a 22 kΩ resistor, as well as the other needed components. (4 turns primary, 475 secondary.)
It works fine with a 2N2222, but I was wondering if it ...
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How to improve a Tesla coil?
I've recently built a relatively big Tesla coil. It is a larger version of the Slayer exciter but with 2 big MOSFETs. The same circuit, with a smaller coil produced small arcs without a top load, and ...
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Should the top torus of a Tesla coil be cut?
Dosen't the top load torus act like one turn coil in short circuit?
Doesn't it "steal" (decrease) the energy transfer to the arc?
As a load, it has an inductive reactance (1 turn solenoid.) ...
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Large series resistor to protect from shock
I built a high voltage generator and want to protect myself against shocks.
Would putting a large series resistor on the powering circuit be sufficient to protect me in those cases:
I build a large ...
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Is it possible to operate a Tesla coil at lower frequencies?
Tesla coils usually operate at a frequency level between 50 kHz to 1 MHz. What if we use a frequency between 60 to 100 Hz? Will it work? What will be the effect on the spark?
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Calculating number of turns an electromagnet has
The title, but can one calculate the amount of turns on a coil or find that out somehow? Because I purchased a 120m copper coil (originally intended on using it on another coil former before giving up ...
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Resonant RF transformer using a piece of wire (no capacitors)
I'm curious if it is possible to build a spark-gap Tesla coil without using capacitors at all.
Basically, treating the primary and secondary as TX/RX antennas and cutting them to proper length so that ...
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Why does my MOSFET keep failing?
I am using the IRFZ44N MOSFET for my slayer exciter Tesla coil.
The primary has 3 turns and the secondary about 1000 turns. The high voltage output has no load connected, it's just dangling mid-air.
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Slayer exciter doesn't work
I know that similar questions have been asked here, but none of the answers seem to work for me. Also, I am new to this site, and I am not much of an expert when it comes to electronics, so feel free ...
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How exactly does a Tesla coil primary winding transfer energy to the secondary winding?
We know that the Tesla coil has a low coupling coefficient so most of the energy is transferred by using electric resonance. How exactly does it transfer the energy? When the oscillating magnetic ...
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Tesla coil with flyback transformer and ZVS circuit
I am new to the field of electronics and I might have some wrong concepts.
I was thinking of designing an old fashioned 'spark gap' Tesla coil.
Materials I have:
a flyback transformer
a cheap ZVS ...
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Why is the primary of the Tesla coil placed at the bottom of the secondary?
The primary winding of the Tesla coil is wound around only the bottom portion of the secondary coil and in Wikipedia, they mention that this configuration illustrates the operation of the secondary as ...
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How to design a class-E amplifier with a more complicated load (tesla coil)
I'm currently trying to build a 4MHz Tesla Coil powered by a Class-E amplifier. I've managed to design and simulate such amplifiers with a load consisting of a resistor and a coil or a capacitor using ...
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Will overlapping a few wires on a Tesla coil affect its performance?
When winding my secondary coil I accidentally overlapped a couple wires (~10 out of 900). I know that you can't overlap wires because the voltage drops but is overlapping just a few wires okay?
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Secondary Coil Malfunction in an SSTC Circuit
I’ve designed an SSTC circuit which is based on a different topology and I wanted to accomplish it in real life. The circuit is operating at approximately 1.5 MHz during resonance and inherently, the ...
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Understanding high frequency tesla coil circuit
Below is a circuit diagram for a high frequency tesla coil circuit that I found on this site. L2 is the primary winding and L3 is the secondary. My understanding of resonant transformers is that they ...
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Tesla coil design: primary coil
Background info:
I'm trying to create a spark gap tesla coil that uses a ZVS / flyback combo, and so far, given the initial tests with a 12 volt 20 amp power supply, I managed to get it to work, but ...
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Is this video fake? I thought Tesla coils only worked on AC
This video shows a 9-volt battery connected to a wire as a primary.
The first reason I think this is fake is that he is powering a Tesla coil with 10 volts.
The second reason is that Tesla coils work ...
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What makes Tesla coils better than conventional transformers at generating high voltages?
The voltage gain of a Tesla coil can be determined from the primary and secondary inductances \$L_1\$ and \$L_2\$ using the following formula (Wikipedia has a simple derivation):
$$ \frac{V_2}{V_1} = \...
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What are the effects of small spark gaps on connectors?
I was reading about the '4th Pin' problem that effects almost all modern iPhone users. It is where the 4th pin on the lightning connector turn black and eventually will not work until it is scraped or ...
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IR2110 output voltage problem
I have been working on a half bridge Tesla coil circuit. In process of building the Tesla coil, I have come across some problems.
First of all, I’m using the IR2110 gate driver IC to drive the MOSFETs....
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How the feedback circuitry of a Tesla Coil works?
I have a project to do in school which is a DIY musical Telsa Coil and I need to build the hardware. I searched on the Internet and found these 2 schematics:
My schematic is completely different from ...
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How to bring a transformer's secondary impedance to the primary side with k < 1?
I know that when I have a transformer with a coupling coefficient of 1, I can use the formula Z' = Z × (N₁ / N₂)². How could I calculate this impedance with a ...
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Using 74HC14 to invert a signal for HIN and LIN pin on IR2110
recently ive been working on a sstc solid state tesla coil project.I am using IR2110 gate driver ic for driving my IRFP450 N-channel mosfets in half-bridge configuration.so the IR2110 ic have two ...
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Slayer exciter not drawing from supply
I made a Slayer exciter according to the schematic below.
I have done about everything necessary for it to work such as sanding the bottom of the secondary.
I have 2000 turns on secondary, and 7 on ...
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How to measure which spark gap is firing, in a type of Tesla coil, using an Arduino
Firstly, I am teaching myself electronics and do not know all the lingo at this point in time.
With that said, I have conceptualized a fun(?) project in the back of my mind which consists of multiple ...
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Using Circuit of Plasma Globe to Power a Tesla Coil
I had this old plasma globe laying around so I opened it up and found what I think is a ZVS circuit(I have ZERO knowledge of high voltage electronics and I may be wrong). I also have a wound tesla ...
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How can I play midi on this tesla coil?
I've made several small tesla coils, however I wanted to buy one that was compact and powerful, so I bought this one. I'm assuming it is a drsstc, since it has a half bridge of mosfets or igbts, which ...
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Why do single transistor oscillators work to power a transformer, if a transformer needs AC?
I have been making some high voltage projects lately, such as a spark gap Tesla coil, slayer exciter, and a flyback transformer HV supply.
The flyback transformer uses a single transistor circuit, ...
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Plasma damage to body cells
Can exposure to plasma or energy from Tesla home windings damage the body's cells?
More generally, will the plasma or energy from the Tesla coil ionize?
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What happens if a small Tesla coil is fed with a powerful Neon-sign transformer?
It is typically recommended to use a big neon-sign transformer (NST) for a physically big spark gap tesla coil.
Assuming the primary and secondary of a small tesla coil are tuned to have resonance on ...
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Why does a Tesla coil secondary need intermittent excitation to achieve resonance?
I have been reading about Tesla coils and their principle of operation - if I have understood correctly - after the primary is sufficiently charged, its circuit is closed (by means of a spark gap or ...
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Can I make a tesla coil with this setup?
I had an old plasma globe and I ripped it apart to find a flyback transformer and some other components. I am not sure what type of circuit this is but I want to make it into a tesla coil. I wound a ...
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Effect of secondary coil in a resonant transformer on resonant frequency
I have a friend who has asked me to help them with tuning their tesla coil. Every schematic I can find for building one simplifies down to essentially the circuit below. I recognize the primary ...
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Will a Tesla coil work with a square wave inverter output, used as input?
I wanted to try an unusual thing, I couldn't find enough resources explaining this approach.
Few days back, I built a fairly simple CFL inverter using a TL494 IC and a couple of power transistors. It'...
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Slayer Exciter circuit not producing electricity
I used the circuit below to try to make a slayer exciter, but it doesn't seem to be able to power anything around it. Is there anything that I'm missing? Also, yes, I know that in the picture there is ...
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How to increase Vdss of power MOSFET?
I want to build a Tesla coil with mains voltage. I found a schematic online but it uses an irfp460n MOSFET which can handle 500v (Vdss) but I only have couple of irfp260n and irf250n MOSFETs with 200v ...
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Gate drive transformer for lower frequency (25 kHz)
I am doing this half bridge to generate High voltage from 300VDC.(Around >10000Volts for a corona discharge tube to produce ozone)
I have gone through many application notes for making one GDT for ...
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Resonant Q Factor vs Voltage Gain
I was pondering the analytic effect of Q on the voltage gain for quarter wavelength helical resonators (Tesla Coil Secondary). One of the reasons a great looking secondary can perform poorly is due to ...
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Can we use Litz multi-strand wire as Tesla coil secondary?
I am making a mini Tesla coil as a proof of concept. I was thinking, can we use multiple enameled copper wires as the secondary? (Edit: Every wire is individually enameled and the ends sanded to ...
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Slayer exciter not working
My issue
I have recently been looking at a circuit named a "slayer exciter". From what I have read it is a form of SSTC (solid state tesla coil). I found a good video about it on youtube ...
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Is there a safe way to operate any type of a tesla coil on a functioning modern car (moving road vehicle)?
(Updated with clarifications)
Could a tesla coil be safely built, installed and operated on an active road vehicle which is driving a regular city street? Let's say we want the discharges to be 20-...
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