Tesla Coils

Group Thompson

Kevin Brown
Jervis Liang
Vasilios Mitrokostas
Mathew Reiter

A Tesla Coil What is it?

What is it? • Simply, a Tesla coil is an air-
cored transformer that converts
Who invented it? electricity into a high frequency,
high voltage form and pump it
Why was it invented? out into the air.
How does it work? • Even simpler, a Tesla Coil is a
means to transmit electric
Can I build one? power wirelessly and to create
artificial lightning
Are there any practical • Or to put it a better way, it is an
uses for one today? induction coil

Nikola Tesla
Why and who invented it?
• Nikola Tesla
• A Serbian-American inventor
• Born in what is now Croatia
on June 28, 1856
• He went to Austria
Polytechnic and studied
electrical engineering
• While there he studied the
uses of alternating current
• In 1881, he worked for the
American Telephone Company
where he was the chief
electrician
• IN 1882, he worked for the
Continental Edison Company
where he improved existing
equipment and started inventing,
specifically the induction motor
• In 1884, he came to the US and
worked for Edison Machine
Works

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 Still Nikola Summary of Nikola Tesla
• After his working with Edison,
Nikola tried to make his own • He was a famous inventor
company but his ideas were not • Worked for famous people
well received by his investors • The progression of ideas leading
to the Tesla Coil:
• He worked as a common laborer 1. Rotating magnetic field devices
after his failed company 2. Induction motor and high frequency
alternator
• In 1888, he developed the ideas 3. means for increasing the intensity
behind the Tesla Coil and worked of electrical oscillations
with George Westinghouse 4. alternating current long-distance
electrical transmission system
5. Tesla Coil
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jbourj/money3.htm

How a Tesla Coil Works How a Tesla Coil Works

• A Tesla coil is an air core transformer • The voltage source charges the capacitor
• It includes an LC Circuit – an inductor and • When the capacitor is charged the electric
a capacitor field ionizes the air in the spark
gap and closes it

How a Tesla Coil Works Building a Tesla Coil

• The current then induces a charge in the
secondary coil
• The ratio of the number of turns between
the primary and secondary coil determine
the voltage of the
output

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 Step 1: Determine the Size Step 2: The Power Supply
Factors to consider: • The most difficult
• Large tesla coils are very loud and require large component to
amounts of space. acquire
• The maximum length of the streamers is limited by
the power of the power supply: L=1.7*sqrt(P) where • Limiting factor in
L is the streamer length (in inches) and P is the Neon sign transformers
the spark size
supplied power (in Watts). • Neon sign
• As the tesla coil increases in size and power, the transformers are
components will become more expensive. Thus, the
size of your tesla coil will be limited by your budget.
generally the
easiest to get

Step 3: The Capacitor Step 4: The Secondary Coil

• For small Tesla coils, television • The size of the secondary coil is directly related to the
capacitors are a good choice. power of the power supply:
• One of the most difficult Power Range Coil Diameter Coil Length
component to find Less than 500 W 3 - 4 inches 18 - 20 inches
• Optimal capacitance: 500 W - 1500 W 4 - 6 inches 20 - 24 inches
200 capacitors wired together: C=I/(.0062832*E*FL) 1500 W - 3 KW 6 - 10 inches 24 - 40 inches
not the best solution where E and I are the voltage and
amperage of the power supply and • To make the secondary coil, take one long piece of
FL is the line frequency (60 Hz in enamel-coated wire and wrap it around a cardboard
the US) tube or PVC pipe.
• Too much capacitance, and the • Choose the wire thickness to get approximately 800 to
1000 turns of the wire. The optimal thickness is the
capacitors won’t fully charge length of the coil divided by the desired number of
• Too little capacitance, and you turns.
Television capacitors
waste power

Step 5: Discharge Terminal Step 6: Primary Coil

• Any shape without sharp edges will
work. Although toroids are most often
Toroidal Discharge
used, a sphere will work just as well.
Terminal
• The discharge terminal forms a
capacitor in the secondary LC circuit.
Its capacitance must be calculated in
order to determine the resonance
frequency for the circuit, which is
F=1/(2*pi*sqrt(L*C))
where F is the frequency (in kHz), L
is the inductance of the secondary
Grease catcher – for
low-budget Tesla coils coil, and C is the capacitance of the
discharge terminal
• The primary coil is just a coil of wire.
Most people use a flat spiral coil, but
other shapes are also possible, such
as a conical spiral.
• The coil must have the proper
Flat Spiral Coil inductance so that the frequency of
the primary circuit is equal to that of
the secondary circuit.
• Manipulating the formula from the
previous step yields
L=1/(C*(2*pi*F)2), which can be
used to find the inductance that is
required for the primary coil. F is the
frequency of the secondary circuit,
Conical Spiral Coil found in the previous step.

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 Step 7: Spark Gap
• The spark gap acts as the
power switch for the primary
circuit. Basic Spark Gap
• Since sparks heat up the air and cause
uneven resistance, its design must be
adjusted to reduce this heating. The easiest
way is to use a large number of small gaps
instead of one large gap. Another method is
Cylindrical Spark Gap to continuously blow air across the spark gap
to keep it cool.
• Several designs for spark gaps are shown.
The cyclindrical spark gap contains many
small gaps. The rotary spark gap is the most
effective, but also the most difficult to make. It
uses a motor to rotate the electrodes at a
specific frequency, eliminating the problem of
Rotary Spark Gap inconsistent resistance in the air.
Step 8: Chokes
• Although not strictly required for
Tesla coils, high-frequency chokes
will filter out noise that may ruin
the power supply.
• Chokes are simple inductors made
by coiling wire around a pen or
another similar cylindrical object.
Cheap chokes using
pens, motor wire, and a • Two chokes are used and are
CD case placed in the circuit at the
connections to the power supply.

Step 9: Grounding Step 10: Putting it All Together

• Properly grounding the Tesla coil is • Once you have all of the
components, you can put them
extremely important. You must not ground together to get a Tesla coil.
your Tesla coil to the outlets in your • All that is left is tuning the
Tesla coil to get optimal
house, or else you may destroy all of your One possible Tesla coil design performance. Be warned: the
electrical appliances. The best way to Mains = AC power from the
electrical grid
tuning process may take a
significant amount of time. All
ground the Tesla coil is to pound a large Tr1 = power supply (step 2)
Tesla coils are unique, so
L1, L2: Chokes (step 8)
metal spike into the ground and attach the g1: spark gap (step 7) there is no general formula for
C1: capacitor (step 3) tuning them.
ground wire to it. Improper grounding may L3: primary coil (step 6)
be hazardous to your health! L4: secondary coil (step 4)
Trm1: discharge terminal (step 5)
Gnd: ground (step 9)

Step 11: Completed Tesla Coil Applications of the Tesla Coil

• The concept of the Tesla
coil has led to two primary
applications.

• One is based on
its modern,
practical use.
• The other is
based on its
inspiration of
newer devices.
Spark length: 8 feet Potential: 500k Volts

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 Entertainment Modern Inventions
• The Tesla coil itself has little practical use, but the
concept has led to other related inventions such as the
• Today's only practical use of the Tesla coil is for flyback transformer and ignition coil.
demonstrative purposes.
•These are not Tesla
• Commonly coils. However, the Tesla coil's
design and function serve as the
found in science predecessor to these devices.
fairs and magic • A flyback transformer generates the
shows, the flashy voltage required to power the cathode
electricity is more ray tube used in older televisions and
for inspiration monitors. Ignition coils convert battery
and impression voltage in order to power the spark
than anything plugs in an automobile.
else.

Sources
• http://tesladownunder.iinet.net.au/
• http://nic.funet.fi/pub/sci/electrical/tesla/pictures/rq/rq_f800.gif
• http://www.menzelphoto.com/gallery/big/lightning3.htm
• http://users.tm.net/lapointe/Overview.htm
• http://www.thelightningguy.com/
• http://members.tripod.com/extreme_skier/quantum3/
• http://www.classictesla.com/photos/tesla/tesla.html
• http://homepage.ntlworld.com/forgottenfutures/tesla/tesla.htm
• http://peswiki.com/index.php/Category:Nikola_Tesla
• http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/mad-science/nikola-tesla/
• http://users.tm.net/lapointe/HowItWorks.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_coil
• http://www.menzelphoto.com/gallery/big/lightning3.htm
• http://www.arcadeshop.com/pics/g07flyback.jpg
• http://www.electricmuseum.com/exhibits/tesla/images/newcoil_B_10_2002.jpg
• http://www.ttr.com/images/coil-12.jpg
• http://www.angelfire.com/80s/sixmhz/trashy.html
• http://www.deepfriedneon.com
• http://teslamania.delete.org
• http://tesladownunder.com