Original poster: Vardan <vardan01@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Hi,I think it is Jeff Messer who has been making Tesla coils for sale on E-bay and such for years. As far as I know, he is not on the list here. He is very active and has made all kinds of coils for sale:
http://www.teslacoil.net/Custom/Custom.html http://cgi.ebay.com/TESLA-COIL-Solid-State-SSTC-3-Over-3ft-Lightning_W0QQitemZ200001158387 The main site is here: http://www.teslacoil.netThe coil appears to be an IGBT H-bridge CW coil. If driven right, these types of coils can make significantly less ozone than most coils.
http://www.teslacoil.net/images/SSTC-3/SSTC-3-MainOFF.JPGI guess one could "say" a pure AC power driven coil is safer since it does not store high energies and the drive "should" eliminate DC components. So it burns you with less pain :o)) Of course, one should not go playing with arcs...
He might have made the tube coil I have and I have seen one of the big spark gap coils in person. They seem well thought out. The construction is "fast" with common hardware parts, but they work fine.
I imagine repair is fairly easy if ever needed so the risk is probably not great.
Cheers,
Terry
At 09:49 PM 6/23/2006, you wrote:
Coilers, I ran across a website of a company that manufactures and sells SSTCs. See http://www.teslacoil.net/images/SSTC-3-disWEBBuy.htm . According to the description and photos, it uses 4 IGBTs in an H-bridge, with power to it controlled by an SCR, runs a max of 240 volts on the primary, produces about 36 inch leaders, and apparently is not a DRSSTC. It produces "safer waveforms"--anyone know what that means? Does anyone have any details on its circuit, theory of operation, etc.? It sells for about $500 and includes a lifetime repair warranty (a gutsy thing to do in my opinion). On the negative side, there are pictures of the leaders from the SSTC-3 jumping to someone's hand and arm, and claiming that it produces much milder unpleasant reactions than does a DRSSTC or SGTC. Even though he says one should not perform that experiment themselves, pictures speak louder than words and may lead others to try it with unfortunate results. DON'T DO THAT! Anyway, if you know something about this particular SSTC, please share it with the rest of us. Thanks, --Steve Y.