Tesla Coils, of course

[salter]

So i recently started doing research on how to make my own tesla coil. The design that i decided on is pretty simple- the main coil circuit consists of a power supply, a capacitor, an inductor with only a few winds, and a spark gap as a switch. the secondary is just a coil around pvc pipe with an aluminum bowl type of thing on the top (i havn't decided exactly what to do for that part).

 

So figured out most of the details... a few things still evade me. I was going to use a 66 watt compact flourescent sawed off at the bulb linked to an old flyback transformer... Some sites i found say that the design i have works with a DC power supply like i described above and i don't see why it would not. However, other sites say it has to be AC for this particular design. I also wonder if the wattage will be too low to get any real results... i suppose if my capacitor is rated at a high enough number of farads it is unimportant what the power supply's wattage is...

Sorry about the lack of knowledge here. completely self-taught.

 

I've also seen things on a few sites about saftey spark gaps. the question i have is... if you have a saftey gap the distance has to be within the distance that the voltage times the square root of 2 accounts for... right? wouldn't this take away from the effectiveness of the device? Because if the saftey gap is within V*1.414 then the main gap has to be closer than it, which would not allow the capacitor to reach it's full potential.

 

One more thing regarding the capacitors... is the rate that the joules within the capacitor grows per volt equal to the total capacity in joules divided by V*1.414 - V? i also need to determine the speed at which the primary coil and secondary coil oscillate... whatever that means, help please, so that i can get the right ratios down. I also need to calculate/measure frequency for the same reason. (how?)

 

For all of these things i need the initial voltages and i might need amperage too... how can i figure these out? im afraid i would blow up my multimeter. Probably. lol

 

 

Should i just go with a neon transformer because it's more straitforwards? initial voltage, etc. is already given.

 

If it helps, the general idea i used is at http://members.tm.net/lapointe/HowItWorks.htm

[Jacques]

I don't know much about Telsa coil but with the description you gave of an aircoil transformer you need AC. But not so sure because the spark gap switch may do the job of creating an AC current in the transformer

[Sedit]

Go with the NST

I have made coils of all shapes and sized and they are not hard at all to make a simple circuit that works... Its getting it intune without electricuting your self that may prove to be hard

 

I used OBIT's for a power source and Due to the low MA it was some what limiting to the output and my smaller coils always out performed(plus they where more fun because i could play with them directly).

 

It goes in as DC and the energy resonating between the time the capacitor takes to charge/discharge and the timing of the magnetic field around the coil expanding and collapsing need to be in sync with each other for the best results but after making a small one that can be adjusted easyer you will find that all the mathmatics in the world wont hold the information you will get from playing with it in the field

 

PS: keep in mind almost nothing is an insulator at these frequencys of AC and you will get skin surface arcs across things.