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Re: First Tesla
In a message dated 1/19/99 1:35:55 AM Pacific Standard Time, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
writes:
> Salutations, I was pondering if anyone could offer their opinion on my tesla
> coil. It is my first ever, and I get about 8$ a week for money. I am only
> `3, which means a limited cash flow. I am hoping to make a working tesla by
> Jan 25th. I plan to use the following: wood base, 8 awg coaxial cable
> primary 2.75 inches tall, seconday pvc painted with polyurethane, and wound
> with about 85 feet of some high voltage 8 gauge copper wire, toroid for
> discharge made of aluminum, salt water capacitors(4 gatorade bottles), a 1
> or 5 kv transformer, not sure which, and I plan to use a specific design I
> am working on to increase efficincy of my coil. I know the plans sound not
> complete but I have spent about 58 hours online and in the library
> researching teslas. If anyone could offer advice on any cost
effective(cheap
> but good) ways to make a great tesla coil, let me know. Thanks.
> ----Ryan B
>
Ryan,
Couldn't resist this - for being only 3, you type quite well.
First off, your secondary needs to be many turns of small diameter wire. You
want the inductance of the secondary to be much higher than the inductance of
the primary. If this is a 3 or 4" diameter secondary, I would suggest using
something between #24 to #28 guage wire. I would also suggest to wind the
primary as a flat spiral. Check the Tesla web ring site and find some Tesla
calculation programs to help you design this coil. I would not build anything
until I had the primary, secondary and capacitor design well in hand. You
need to make sure the primary can drive the secondary at its resonant
frequency before you get the thing built. I can send you a copy of my Excel
spreadsheet if you would like.
Ed Sonderman