Super simple beginner coils

To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Super simple beginner coils
From: Terry Fritz <terryf-at-verinet-dot-com>
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 17:42:45 -0700
Approved: terryf-at-verinet-dot-com
Hi All,
	
	I have received a number of off-list requests for a simple beginner Tesla
coil that could be built by someone at say the junior high level.  No big
high power sparks or pole pigs, just a nice little easy to make table top
coil that would be good for science fairs (and getting an A in science).
Preferably nothing super lethal but be able to make a few inch spark and
demonstrate the principles of operation.  It would have to be simple,
cheap, and use standard parts so that a set of easy plans would work for
everybody.  Of course, getting consistant parts is the key.
	What I was thinking of is this.  A GM ignition coil is cheap and easy to
get at the cheap auto parts store or junk yard.  Not quite a Tesla coil,
but real easy to get and solves a lot of problems building the primary and
secondary to specs (they are pretty consistently made I hear).  A little
plumber's putty could be used to seal a tube with a small terminal on the
output (copper toilet float perhaps).  The primary could be run from a
small home made dry cap to a set of easy plans (foil and poly between
planks of wood).  The spark gap would probably be any two nails probably
very close together.  The power perhaps could come from a discarded
disposable camera flash unit.  Of course, the primary could also be a relay
operating as a set of breaker points as in a car.  But, perhaps, that would
be a little too non Tesla coil like.  Old TVs also have HV rectifiers that
can be very useful for turning sparking things into something that could
charge a primary cap (this probably would not be a 400BPS rotary gap
machine :-))
	I would think there is a good chance of whipping something like this up
that anyone could build.  If anyone has any ideas this would really help
the "real" newbies out!
	I have a bunch of GM coils laying about so I'll try to tinker with this.
If anyone already has it done, well... that would make it real easy :-))
They have iron cores and such, so there is a bit of "real" engineering that
needs to be looked into to be sure it would work.

Of course, if anyone has any super easy beginner coil plans available,
please mention them. 

Any ideas would be appreciated by many of those that rarely post (the other
90% of us) :-))


	Terry