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Tesla Coils

Tesla Coils

Jay’s Tesla Coil

Jay’s Tesla Coil

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Variacs

Variacs

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Tesla coils are a class of isolated resonant transformers invented by Nikola Tesla in the late 1800's. Tesla's vision for his coil was to resonate the earth and provide free power to everyone. This of course did not pan out; but the world got an awesome, easy to construct lightning machine out of his genius anyway.

Output arcs from one of Jay's older Tesla coils.

The device consists of a primary pulsed LC drive circuit magnetically coupled into a secondary free wheeling LC circuit, the frequencies of both LC circuits are matched to provide maximum power transfer between the two circuits. The secondary can either be configured as a half wave or quarter wave resonator.

\LARGE f = \frac{1}{2 \pi \sqrt{LC}}

equation determining the frequency of an LC oscillator

Basic Schematic of a Tesla Coil

A large part of the magic to the Tesla coil is a high amplitude damped sinusoidal current pulse, this is accomplished by discharging a capacitor into a low impedance. To perform this discharge some form of switch is required; typically a spark gap. Modern Incarnations utilize solid state switches such as MOSFETS or IGBT's.

Back
  • NPL-Home
    • About Us
    • Accelerators
      • Betatrons
        • Plasma Betatron Coil Form: Design and Construction
        • Pulsed B-Dot Measurement
        • CW B-Dot Measurement
        • First Beam Attempts
      • Cyclotrons
        • 12-Inch Cyclotron
        • Axial Betatron Motion
        • Floating Wire Technique
        • 12-Inch Cyclotron Papers
      • DC Potential Drop
    • Experiments
      • Alpha Spark Detector
      • Jay’s Diffusion Cloud Chamber
      • Tim’s Wilson Cloud Chamber
      • Deuterated Target Preparation
      • Gamma-Gamma Coincidence
      • Measurement of excited Np237 half-life via the alpha-gamma coincidence method.
      • MUONS
        • Life & Times of a Muon
      • Neutrons
        • Neutron Diffusion Time Measurement
        • Neutron Induced Gamma Rays
        • Neutron Detection with He-3
      • Photography
        • AVCO Rotating Mirror
        • Dark Room
        • Fast Flash Photography
        • Rotating Drum Camera
        • Schlieren Photography
        • X-Rayted Photos
      • Rutherford Scattering
      • Thermoluminescence
    • History
      • The Kerst Collection
      • Heisenberg Cube
      • Koeth Collection – Consumer Products
      • Koeth Collection – Radiation Detection Instruments
      • Koeth Collection – Reactors & Weapons
      • Koeth Collection – Games & Collectables
    • High Voltage & Pulsed Power
      • Blue Thunder
      • Jacob’s Ladder
      • Krytrons
      • Marx Generator
      • Electric Watermelon
      • Tesla Coils
        • Jay’s Tesla Coil
        • Variacs
      • Quarter Crushing
    • Plasma
      • Fusors
        • FUSOR I
        • FUSOR II
        • Scott's Fusor
        • Fusor Simulations
      • The Mirror Machine
      • Pinch Machines
        • Linear Pinch
        • Toroidal Pinch
        • Pinching
    • Spectroscopy
      • Alpha Particle Spectroscopy
      • Gamma Ray Spectroscopy
        • HPGe Gamma Ray Spectroscopy Education
        • HPGe Systems
        • Cosmogenic Be-7
        • NAS Wildwood Mystery
        • Autunite
        • Trinitite
        • Tc-99m : Cardiac Stress Test
      • Software & Hardware
        • Refurbishment of LN2 Dewars
        • DIY Matlab MCA
        • Amateur Canberra Spectroscopy System
        • Antique MCA
        • NIM Modules
          • Canberra Nim Modules
          • ORTEC Nim Devices

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