3kW, 120VAC Tesla Coil Power Controller

3kW, 120VAC Tesla Coil Power Controller

3kW, 120VAC Power Controller (Note: Legends and nameplates not yet installed)

Introduction

Finally tired of six million wires all over the place when I run my SSTC coils and my conventional coil, so I've decided to

build a dedicated rack mount 120VAC controller. A second 240VAC controller will be built as well to control power to

my new pole transformers.

Features

- 3kW Primary Power output control via 20A, 120VAC variac.

- 1kW Auxillary Power output control via 8.5A, 120VAC variac.

- Dual 20A RF Line Filters for Primary Power output.

- ENA / DIS controls for both outputs

- E-STOP circuit with external interlock control

- Key safety switch

- High power cooling fan for variacs

- Rack-mount enclosure

- 0-500VAC Simpson Analog Meter with 500:120 Precision divider

- 0-50A Simpson Analog Meter with 200:5 Current Transformer (3 turns)

Schematics and Electrical Design

The following schematics are the final design 3kW, 120VAC Power Controller. (Requires Adobe Acrobat 5.0)

Front Panel

Here is the front control panel. The variac on the left is the Primary control variac. The variac on the right

is the auxilliary control variac which will be used for a ARSG (Asynchronous rotary spark gap.) You can

also see the E-STOP, key safety switch, power switch, ENABLE / DISABLE pushbuttons for both

primary and auxilliary circuits, as well as three indictor LEDs.

Analog Meters

On top of the enclosure are two Simpson analog meters. The Simpson voltmeter will be read full scale 0-500V,

while the ammeter will actually be 0-50A full scale. At the time, these were the only meters I could get from

Ebay. A Simpson 200:5 current transformer is used to measure primary control current. The primary output

wire will wrap three times around this current transformer giving it an effective divide ratio of 50:5 where 5A

is the current full scale of the Simpson meter.

Testing

The 3kW, 120VAC Power Controller has already been tested with the following full-load tests:

Primary Output: 5 Hours at 120VAC, 30A load (variac temperature within specifications with fan cooling)

Aux. Output: 5 Hours at 120VAC, 10A load (variac temperature within specifications with fan cooling)

Additional Photos

(Click image for larger picture)

More to come soon . . .

Last modified August 16, 2005 08:05:20 PM