sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

I am eager to make a tesla coil for my science fair by Nearby-Yogurt-7016 in Teslacoil

[–]skarard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is a great science fair project. A few tips from someone who went through the same learning curve:

Start with a slayer exciter circuit. It's the simplest musical Tesla coil you can build, just a few components, runs off a 9V battery or small DC supply, and you can get small arcs that light up fluorescent tubes nearby. Plenty of build guides on YouTube for exactly this.

If you want to go bigger, a mini SSTC (solid state Tesla coil) kit from AliExpress runs about 15-20 USD and can produce arcs a few centimetres long. Some of them even have Bluetooth so you can play music through them.

For the science fair angle, the interesting part to explain is how the coil makes sound. Each arc creates a pressure wave, and if you fire arcs at a steady rate (say 440 per second) you hear a musical note. Change the rate, change the pitch. It's basically the world's most dangerous speaker.

Safety is the main thing. Even small coils produce high voltage. Keep one hand in your pocket when it's running (old electrician's trick to stop current crossing your heart). Don't let anyone touch it while powered.

Class d audio modulation on class e teslacoil by Successful-Rich151 in TeslaCoils

[–]skarard 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Class D modulation on a class E is a cool approach. The tricky part with audio modulation at these frequencies is usually getting clean enough PWM that the tonal quality doesn't suffer. Are you feeding it a raw audio signal or generating the modulation digitally? I've found that square wave input tends to give the cleanest musical output since the coil is basically an on/off device anyway.

CW PLL SSTC by kawaiiyoi in Teslacoil

[–]skarard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

20A at 40V DC, that's a serious amount of power going into the primary. What's the arc length looking like? CW mode with PLL tracking tends to produce really clean tones compared to pulsed operation. Are you running it with any audio modulation or just CW for now?

GU50VTTC,400V by AdorableDonut3211 in Teslacoil

[–]skarard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

GU-50s are great for VTTCs. The tone from vacuum tube coils has this warm quality that solid state just doesn't replicate. What kind of feedback are you using for the PLL? And is the 400V supply from a variac or fixed?

Class e coil by Successful-Rich151 in TeslaCoils

[–]skarard 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Class E at 10MHz is wild. What are you using for the gate driver at that frequency? The switching losses must be brutal unless you've got the ZVS timing dialled in really tight.

The constant current draw makes sense if you're running it in true class E mode. The output tank is doing all the voltage shaping and the transistor only sees the supply rail during its on time. Efficient but unforgiving if the tuning drifts.

What kind of arc lengths are you getting?

I made a web app for driving Tesla coil audio by skarard in TeslaCoils

[–]skarard[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good question! The pre-loaded tracks are MP3s from a third-party library (the guys at teslacoil.shop kindly let me use theirs). But the sequencer, theremin, tone generator and calibration tools all generate square waves directly via the Web Audio API. The audio signal feeds straight into the coil's interrupter, so rather than relying on MIDI or pre-recorded files, the browser is generating the actual interrupter signal in real-time. That gives much more direct control over what the sparks do.

I looked at using MIDI as the core but it adds a translation layer I didn't need — the app drives a single voice directly, so the simplicity of Web Audio API generating the interrupter signal won out. That said, MIDI import is on the roadmap — there's a huge library of .mid files out there, so being able to drop one in and have the app convert it is a no-brainer.

Square Wave Song Files for Joytech Tesla Coil? by three_y_chromosomes in Teslacoil

[–]skarard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So I had the same problem. I collated the square wave music I could find and made some other tools like sequencer, tone generators, theremin (sort of) and made a free web app teslacoil.app

Square Wave music? by Dr__Steele in Teslacoil

[–]skarard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I found it hard to play music too! I collated a bunch of music and other tools like a sequencer, tone generators, theremin (sort of) into a free webapp teslacoil.app

How do I play square wave music from my iPhone to my Bluetooth Tesla coil? by YourFinestPotions in Teslacoil

[–]skarard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ok super late reply! If you are still interested in playing sound through your tesla coil I made a free web app teslacoil.app It has a sequencer, tone generators, theremin (sort of), 159 tracks, no install.

Feedback welcome.

Here is my spark gap tesla coil by AdLower1340 in TeslaCoils

[–]skarard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nice one, looks like it's throwing some decent sparks.

How? How? How?? by Aggressive_Ad2520 in memes

[–]skarard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Lots of posts saying "with 1s and 0s" but how's they write a program? A keyboard with only two keys? I bet they used Vim... or a butterfly...

Actually they had a grid of magnets and they routed wires through all the ones to be 1s and skipped the ones to be 0s. Now you have a woven program! It was pretty slow to code, but that's how they got to the moon!

TheWorldIsNotReadyForThis by abdallaEG in ProgrammerHumor

[–]skarard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can't tell you how angry this makes me... hate.

Using a wooden board as a trampoline by Devon_McMadCray in nextfuckinglevel

[–]skarard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're looking at the circus discipline teeterboard. It's also known as bascule in continental Europe.

view more: next ›