High Power Solid State Tesla Coil

High Power Solid State Tesla Coil

Here is a picture of me demonstrating my High Power Solid State Tesla Coil at Ed Wingate's Teslathon in Rochester, N.Y.

Introduction

Well, I've just finished building my first solid state Tesla Coil which was a complete success, so now its time to make

one bigger and better.

The lower left portion of the board is the low voltage power supply circuit providing +5, +12, and -12 VDC for the driver board.

The lower right portion of the board features the RMS-DC and peak detector circuits as well as the remote control and relay

driver circuity. The upper portion of the board is the H-Bridge circuit and the blue component in the upper left is a LEM

current sensor. Also note that the gate drive transformers are not shown in this picture.

Component view of Solid State Tesla Coil #2

Schematics and Electrical Design

The following schematics are the preliminary design for this High Power Solid State Tesla Coil. (Requires Adobe Acrobat 5.0)

Power Specifications

Input Voltage - 115 to 480VAC (Half and Full Rectified)

Output Voltage - 150 to 850 V p-p, square wave

Output Frequency - Adjustable from 100kHz to 400kHz

Power Supply Type - High Voltage H-Bridge

Cooling - Large Aluminum Finned Heatsink with fans

Coil Specifications

"Poor Man's" winding apparatus

Here is a picture of my secondary coil, just wound and just finished coating with polyurethane. This is the homemade

winder I made to wind both of my secondary coils. Very simple, no motors, and very fast. This coil only took about

one hour to wind by hand with this winding machine.

Primary - 10 to 20 Turns, 10 AWG, 5.5 to 6.5 " PVC with 15 Turn Voltage Sampling winding

Secondary - 1200 Turns, 24 AWG, 4.5 " PVC, 6:1 Aspect Ratio, Resonant Frequency with 13pF topload = 280 kHz

Output Frequency - Adjustable from 100kHz to 400kHz

Toroid - 12" x 3" Spun Aluminum Toroid (from Science First)

Additional Photos

Lessons Learned

1. When using a drill press, be sure to clamp down your work if its small, especially metal and plastic. I recently was drilling

a 1/4" hole through a 1" PVC end cap while constructing a grounding stick and nearly ripped my hand off when the piece

I was drilling got sucked up the drill taking my hand with it!

2. When using a router, be sure the router bit is properly tightened. I neglected to check the tightness of the router bit and

the bit when all over the place tearing up my nice wooden base to shreds.

3. Always take your time when tapping holes. I was real careful for 7 of the 8 holes I needed to tap for my FET mounting on the

heatsinks. Well, I rushed the last one and the damn tap broke!

More to come soon . . .

Last modified August 01, 2004 02:45:44 PM