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Re: [TCML] Tuning SSTC to avoid losing oscillation when I try and draw discharge



Hi Steve,
Thanks, that clarifies things. What's the function of the capacitor across drain and source in the non-Class-E original MicroSSTC? It's obviously not capable of blocking DC across the HEXFET.

Andreas


On Sun, 26 Aug 2012, Steve Ward wrote:

Hi Andreas,

The class E design, such as my old one here:

http://stevehv.4hv.org/classEsstc.htm

does exploit resonance on the primary side.  The tuning of the
primary, however, does not strictly have to match the tuning on the
secondary side.  If the primary tuning is "off" then the voltage
waveform across the mosfet/IGBT will be non-ideal (there will be some
energy left in the tank capacitor at turn ON for each cycle).  The
frequency that the system oscillates at is determined by the secondary
coil's frequency, which does depend on the primary tuning to some
extent.

For a "typical" SSTC driven by a half or full bridge, the capacitor on
the primary side is only for blocking DC, which would not contribute
to the tesla coils power output (but would contribute to heating the
silicon in the bridge!).  This capacitor is often ~10X bigger than a
resonantly sized capacitor so that its AC reactance is insignificant.

Steve


On Sat, Aug 25, 2012 at 8:55 PM, Andreas Hahn <andreas.hahn@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Steve,
Thanks, I'll give it a try.

Also, I didn't realize the primary wasn't intended to be resonant in an
SSTC. How does Class-E work if not for the primary LC resonant frequency
matching the secondary LC...?

Andreas



On Sat, 25 Aug 2012, Steve Ward wrote:

Andreas,

You may want to experiment with the placement of the antenna,
bringing it closer to the tesla coil should help.  Ultimately this
design does suffer from loss of good feedback during ground arc
conditions.  If nothing else, the ground arc produces high frequency
"junk" that goes right into the antenna input and causes undesired
switching of the mosfets.  The fets seem to tolerate it OK, since the
switching is often far above resonance and so the current that can be
delivered to the inductive load stays pretty small.

This is why DRSSTCs evolved to use feedback from the primary circuit,
where ground arcs cannot give junk feedback signals.  Sadly, this
cannot really be applied to a SSTC, you cannot simply take primary
feedback because the primary itself is not resonant.

Steve

On Sat, Aug 25, 2012 at 12:05 PM, Andreas Hahn <andreas.hahn@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

I have sitting in front of me a lovingly wound Tesla coil adapted from
Steve
Ward's MicroSSTC plans, so young it hasn't even blown its first HEXFET.

Sadly it's a bit shy. When I approach the breakout point with a metal
object
held in my hand, the breakout retreats back into the comfort of the metal
from which it sprang (i.e. it stops).

Thoughts on how to best give it the courage to keep oscillating and
making
high voltage despite the menacing approach of a big pair of pliers?

This doesn't happen if I try and draw an arc with a small piece of metal
mounted to an insulating rod.


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