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Hope this might be of some use


Chip,
	Here is most of the stuff I've collected so far. I haven't included 
the sites for free programs from the World Wide Web yet, because I haven't 
had a chance to evaluate them....

What kinds of stuff do you cover with your mailing list?
Put me on...


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Ok, I have been compiling all the sources of Tesla coil info I have:
(updated May 20, 1994)

Sources for Books and Computer Programs on Theory and Design:

Tesla Book Company
P.O. Box 121873
Chula Vista, CA 91912
800-398-2056

Lots of titles+IBM compatible software mixed with a bunch of fringe science 
stuff. I list some of the serious titles below...

International Tesla Society, Inc.
P.O. Box 5636
Colorado Springs, CO 80931
719-475-0918 voice
719-475-0582 fax

Lots of overlap with the Tesla Book Co.. I bought my books from here 
originally. They also have a museum and a yearly conference dealing with 
all subjects dealing with Tesla. Sell video tapes from the International 
Tesla Symposium. Of note: look for tapes from the Corum brothers and From 
Bill Wystock these are the real thing, not the "fringe" stuff. Also look 
for new books/tapes on the TESLA MAGNIFIER. This this the 3 coil version of 
the tesla coil (primary, secondary(resonant or nonresonant), magnifier (
resonant)) which tesla experimented with at Colorado Springs. It is 
more efficent than an ordinary 2 coil system because priamry-secondary 
coupling can be much tighter.

Lindsay's Technical Books
Lindsay Publications, INC
PO Box 538, Bradley IL 60915
815-935-5353

Really cool catalog on all sorts of bizzare techie stuff-you should get a 
catalog just for the entertainment value! Anyway, much of the Tesla stuff 
is reprints or compilations of old material which is not generally 
availible at most libraries. Interesting stuff but perhaps not as useful as 
the newer books. 

John H. Couture
10823 New Salem Point
San Diego, CA 92126

Computer Design Program and Manuals for tesla coils. I don't have the 
program, so I can't comment on it. More on the book below.

**************************************************************************
Other Sources of Information:

Tesla Coil Builder's Association
Harry Goldman
3 Amy Lane
Queensbury, NY 12804
518-792-1003

TCBA publishes a newsletter 4x a year -at-$24/year. 
Information on theory, design, and construction of tesla coils.
Also has trade/sale section for those hard to find parts: high voltage 
transformers and capacitors.
*************************************************************************

Books and Articles generally available:

*BUILD YOUR OWN LASER, PHASER, ION RAY GUN & Other working Space age 
Projects by Robert E. Iannini

Sounds goofy, but there a lot of interesting and workable designs here.
One chapter on a neon sign transformer based tesla coil. ~250,000volts.

*GADGETEER's GOLDMINE by Gordon McComb.

Similar to above. Lots of parts sources listed. Also has a chapter on 
building your own PLASMA GLOBE.

*RADIO ELECTRONICS- SEPTEMBER 1991

Issue has a construction project for a soild state tesla coil by Duane A. 
Bylund. ~ 100,000volt system

*INTERNET-freebie
Check out anon ftp to ftp.ee.ualberta.ca (circuit cookbook directory)
There is a nice small book by Harry Suomalainen called TESLA COIL THEORY 
AND APPLICATIONS - it's in POSTSCRIPT

*A SOLID-STATE LOW-VOLTAGE TESLA COIL DEMONSTRATOR by Donald G. Bruns,
American Journal of Physics. #60 (9), Sept. 1992, pg 797

Good on basic theory especially on resonant coupling effects. Suggests some 
low voltage experiments - useful before you invest big $$$ in a full scale 
system! Only problem with this treatment is that he treats the secondary coil 
as a "lumped" circuit. That is, he models the seconday as a small capacitor 
in series with the secondary inductance. This model is not realistic 
because it does not treat the tesla secondary coil as a transmission line 
or normal mode helical antenna. (More below in Kraus & Jackson)

* ANTENNNAS by J. D. Kraus 

This book has very little in it which will actually help you build a tesla 
coil but gives a great expostion on all types of antennas including helical 
antennas. A tesla coil can be thought of as a poorly radiating helical 
antenna (Kraus calls it normal mode). This cannot be correctly modeled by a 
simple "lumped" circuit model since helical resonators have more than one 
resonant frequency.

* REFERENCE DATA FOR RADIO ENGINEERS, 4th ed 1956 pp 682-686
* WIDE FREQUENCY RANGE TUNED HELICAL ANTENNAS AND CIRCUITS, by
	A.G. Kandoian and W. Sichak, IRE Convention Record (1953)
	[only large librarys are likely to ahev this one]

Have a couple of formulas for computing the resonant frequency of normal 
mode helical antennas. The formulas do not account for capacitve loading 
from discharge electrodes or the from the discharge itself so they can only 
be used as a practical starting point.

* FIELD THEORY OF TRAVELLING WAVE TUBES, by J.D. JACKSON
	Proc IRE 36 No 7, p 853 JUly 1948

Yes, its the same Jackson who has tortured so many physics grad students 
with his EM book! This work predates the above paper -it is rather 
involeved but I include it for completeness. It shows how to set up 
equations for analyzing the helical antenna problem in the context of 
travelling wave tubes.

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One final harping:
There are many old and not-so-old books on computing inductances for coils.
Among the authors are:
F.W. Grover
Herbert B. Dwight

In their treatments for single layer coils they always introduce the 
concept of the coil self-capacitance. Presumably you would take the self-
capacitance in parallel to the inductance of the coil to compute its 
resonant frequency. Although their formulas are suspect on theoretical 
grounds (see above lumped circuit approx), they can be used to approximate 
resonant frequencies -- but only to within an order of magnitude! Depending 
on the physical dimensions of the coil lenght, dia, winding pitch their 
self capacitance can vary widely. In turn, computed resonant frequencies 
will not usually reflect the correct dependencies on these parameters.

**********************************************************************
Books available from Tesla Book Co. and Intl. Tesla Soc.

*Modern Tesla Coil Theory -Duane A. Bylund 
Coupled RLC theory-transmission line theory-capacitive discharge coils-
transistor and tube driven coils-excellent book (highly recomend)

*Modern Resonance Transformer Design Theory -D.C. Cox
simple theory-some practical info


*Tesla Coil Design Manual - J.H. Couture
lots on design curves bases on compiled experimental data-good construction 
tips- weak on theory


*Vacuum Tube Tesla Coils -J.F. Corum, K.L. Corum
lots of references to literature-explains tesla coil in terms of 
transmission line theory-also refers to Tesla's experiments at Colorado 
Springs. Also contains the formula for computing resonant frequencies of 
the helical antenna. (Highly recommend)


Tesla Coil Secrets - R.A. Ford
reprints from old articles-very cheap and interesting
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If you have something to add to this list, send it along. I'm thinking of
writing up a sort of TESLA FAQ since there always seems to be interest.

-Ed