Re: Tiny Tesla Coils (fwd)

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Original poster: Tesla List Moderator <mod1-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com>



---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 13:50:59 -0500
From: cwillis-at-guilford.edu
To: Tesla list <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Subject: Re: Tiny Tesla Coils


Ian,

Sounds like you might be describing a "violet ray generator" or something
similar, where you can place different electrodes in a hand-held wand and
apply them to the body.

These are actually "Oudin coils."  In the upper part of the wand is a small
secondary with thousands of turns of fine wire.  A primary of a few turns
is around this secondary.  Either in the base of the wand or in the rest of
the apparatus is a buzzer-type vibrator that makes and breaks the primary
circuit and can be adjusted to change the output intensity. There is also a
capacitor that serves to resonate with the primary. The primary voltage is
just 120 volts from the wall, no need to have transformers. If you want to
build a coil of this type, there's an excellent article in "The Scientific
American Book of Projects for The Amateur Scientist" (Stong 1960) on how to
build an x-ray machine with an Oudin coil. It tells you how to put the coil
together. Here's the article online:
http://www.noah-dot-org/science/x-ray/stong/

Have fun!
Carl