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Well folks, It's 4th of July, 2000 and I've gotten the urge to build another Tesla Coil. I've decided to chronicle my thought process and construction efforts on this web site. I built my first coil when I was about 13 (a really long time ago) after seeing an article in the July, 1964 issue of Popular Electronics titled 'Big TC and L'il TC'. I, of course built 'Big TC'. It was pretty cool, though. It was built around a neon sign transformer, plate glass capacitors, simple spark gap and a 3'x5" coil wound with #26 enamel magnet wire. I built and operated it in my basement. It was cool because it made sparks around 6" - 8". I could walk into the room above with an armful of fluorescent tubes - All glowing! My mom thought I was nuts! The neighbors were none too pleased either. While I operated the coil, no one in the immediate vicinity could watch TV (We used antennas back then), or Listen to radio, AM, FM, CB or Shortwave. The output of the coil is pretty rich in RF harmonics. It was pretty loud too. Too bad I didn't know too much about resonance back then. I just thought of it as a transformer! You might ask "Why would anyone want to build a Tesla coil?" I, like most of you, have always had a fascination with high voltage. I love thunder storms and the thought of making my own lightning..... Well, you know....
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Back in '72 I attended Control Data Institute in Burlington, MA. While I was there, some friends and I used to make 'road trips' to some of the local high tech companies located along Rt. 128. One of these companies was High Voltage Engineering (I believe). We just dropped in and asked "What do you do?" They were really wonderful and gave us a tour of their facility. It seems that they made particle accelerators. You know, machines that accelerate electrons to BEV (Billions of Electron Volts). In addition to some classified stuff, they did materials testing. They had to start out with a really high voltage source to supply electrons for their accelerators. For this, they used Van De Graaff generators. The engineer was kind enough to push me in the right direction for information and supplies to make my own. Boston is a good place to be for getting weird stuff to make weird things. To make a long story short, I assembled a Van De Graaff generator that had a polished 12" sphere sitting on a 4" Lucite column (similar to picture) that made sparks almost a foot long but they were single sparks, not like the coronal discharge you get from a Tesla coil.
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I'm not really sure what gave me my present urge to play with sparks again but it may have been a TV program about HAARP on 'Sightings' TV show. Who knows, maybe after I've built this thing, I will control the weather or create a top secret weapon with it! More factors that probably didn't help too much an enthusiastic son named Steve, a future brother-in-law named Frank, that God forbid, may be even crazier than I am, a brother-in-law named Pat and a place out in the boonies where I won't disturb too many people. |
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After checking out many other projects on the web, We decided to start with a 'pole pig', one of the transformers you see on telephone poles that steps 14,400 volts down to 220V that can be used in your home (split into 2 - 110V legs). Keep in mind, transformers work both ways. If it can transform 14,400 to 220, It can also step 220 up to 14,400. One of the initial very serious concerns of this project was to protect my house and all of the electronics in it. I read with great interest one of Tesla's experiments where a friend of his provided free power from a local power plant to power his coil for a massive demonstration that used the Earth as a resonator. The demo was spectacular as sparks grew to tens of feet from the top of his resonating tower. Sparks were leaping from the feet of spectators to the ground and the grass had coronal discharges. As the demo was building to a climax, things just shut down. Everyone was wondering what happened until they heard cries of fire in the power plant. It seems that the high frequencies (Around 200KHZ) had 'back fed' along the power grid to the generator where they induced voltages in the windings of the power generators, breaking down the insulation, resulting in fire. Needless to say, there was no more free power for Tesla. I have tried to re-find this account on the web with no success. If you run across it, please drop me a line so I can refer to it in a hyperlink. |
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