super cheap capacitance/inductance Tesla coil metering

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: Terry Fritz <vardin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Hi All,

Making an oscillator with a 555 timer to measure capacitance is on my 
mind.  I "think" it could do inductance easily too...

I was thinking of a trivial LM555C timer circuit powered by a 9V 
battery that would plug into the sound card jack of a computer to 
read the frequency.  A little program might be able to do the math directly...

Thus, one might be able to make a LC meter for like $5 which I think 
many of us would like.

There is probably some free program out there that does the "sound 
card input jack to frequency readout" function????

Everyone has a sound card these days and plenty of resistors protect 
the computer...  So the "high level" hardware is already done...

I suppose such a thing could be made into a Tesla coil primary and 
secondary "tuner too"...  A PC with a sound card plus some cheap and 
easy "Radio Shack" parts is a pretty powerful machine!!! It really 
could be a sound out cable to alligator clips and a resistor 
protected similar input cable if you had nice software...

I know the hardware side, but not the software side...

Hmmmm....

It would be a cool addition to Tesla coil design programs...  I would 
love to be able to send out $10 worth of stuff for someone to hook to 
their coil and it would read back everything we need to know about it ;-)))

Just a thought...

Cheers,

	Terry