Re: 4000 watt Audio Amp to drive Tesla coil (fwd)

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 23:24:16 -0500
From: Drake Schutt <drake89@xxxxxxxxx>
To: Tesla list <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: 4000 watt Audio Amp to drive Tesla coil (fwd)

Well I don't really know anything about audio TC's, but car audio runs at
really low voltages (im going to assume 12VDC).  I'm sure I'm missing
something here, but how do you plan on running a TC off of 12V?

As far as a 4KW 12VDC power supply, I think you're almost SOL.  Ebay turns
up nothing even close to that, but you might be able to make one...  It
probably wouldn't be very fun though.  I really don't know anything about
fabricating a transformer, but you would just need a (really) beefy 10:1
transformer with a rectified output.  right?  Surely there's something out
there that you can make work.

Good luck and keep us posted.  I love audio modulated TC's and would love to
build one some day.

Drake Schutt

On 9/10/07, Tesla list <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 10:57:28 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Timka <tomasdoc2002@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: tesla@xxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: 4000 watt Audio Amp to drive Tesla coil
>
> Hello all,
>
>   Did anyone ever used and audio amp to drive Tesla coil before?
>
>   I came across a few mosfet amps on EBay, new but relatively cheap. The
> one I was looking at is rated at 4000 watts bridged output into 4 Ohms load.
> Now, I figured if I would use copper tubing, the resistance wouldn't be a
> major factor after all.
>
>   Another good thing is that I can feed anything into it via signal
> generator or even audio to see how coil behaves.
>
>   Now, nasty things that I worry about:
>
>   1) It would really suck if I ended up blowing final mosfets due to TC
> secondary kick back and frying internal circuitry, which would be a total
> fiasco and probably would puzzle a lot of clerks at the return department.
> Ad states that amp employs overload protection but whoever designed them
> back in China never envisioned a million volts kickback from an ordinary
> speaker, so I'm not holding my breath there. Any suggestions here?
>
>   2) What kind of power supply is needed? In a car amp works off
> alternator and use around...... around a lot of amps! In fact, not every
> alternator can pull a 4000 watts amp as the most of them is in the area of
> 120 amps on average. Here is quick math for 4K watts amplifier:
>
>   1 channel with 4000 watts RMS per channel doubled to the account for
> amplifier inefficiency (4000 watts X 2 = 8000 watts), then divided by the
> average output Voltage of an alternator, 13.8 volts (8000 divided by 13.8= 580 amps). Since the average signal requires about 1/3rd of the average
> power in a tone used to drive TC, dividing by 3 (580 amps divided by 3 = 193
> amps). This is the result of the amplifier's approximate average current
> draw.
>
>   Soooooooo, how and where in the world do I get a source of 200 constant
> amps at 13.8 volts? This is not your average power supply you can plug
> into a wall. I was thinking of getting a car booster/starter a.k.a battery
> charger, it's the size of small fridge, with 2 fat clammed cables, weights
> about 60lb and probably employs a very large transformer you can use to kill
> your mother in-law that can be plugged into a wall. Another ad claims that
> this car starter can give an instant 300 amps surge or so but how about
> using it for longer than instant or lets say 10 min? Can it pull this amp?
> Of course I can add a few 2 farad audio caps in between, but would it be
> enough?
>
>   The specks of amp are as follows:
>
>   Frequency Response: 15Hz- 35kHz (not too great but hey, it's audio)
>
>   It's on ebay listed under the folowing #150156590184
>
>   All suggestions are welcome,
>
>   Thanks in advance,
>
>   Tim
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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