[sci.electronics] A real mother of a Tesla Coil.

gvokalek@augean.OZ (George Vokalek) (02/05/90)

First of all a reference:

"Make your own FANTASTIC TESLA COIL"
Popular Mechanics, August 1964.

Wow, that came out before I was born.  Its the same issue that describes
how Hydrogen Bombs will be used to dig a new Panama Canal.  Ha.

The above article provides constructional details and pictures of a small
desktop coil.  The primary is vacuum tube excited from a 120vac supply.
The secondardy produces a 'flame' about 3inches long, which someone
can relate to a potential.


The second set of plans I have are from INFORMATION UNLIMITED INC.
These are for a real mother of a generator, generating 1.5 million
volta, resulting in sparks longer than 5 feet (run away!).

A quote:
"The finished unit not only is a shock hazard but also presents a hazard
in X-ray radiation, ozone generation, and a fire hazard."

The X-rays are emitted if the sparks are incident on (presumably) heavy
metal objects.

Just to give you an idea, the secondary coil is 60inches high (5 feet, 150cm)
and 20inches in diameter.  The primary of the big coil is excited by a
neon sign transformer (7500V, 0.5A) burping through a spark gap into the
primary tank circuit.

The unit is powered up through a variac, wonder what would happen if
you powered it up full on.

The instructions recommend turning it on for no more than 10 seconds,
to reduce interference and component fatigue.  I suggest its more a
case of not letting the feds with directional trackers pinpoint your
whereabouts.

A coil that big could probably interfere with much transmission in
our fair city.  The resonant frequency of this particular coil is
not obviously documented.


..G..