Sorry for talking so quietly, this was recorded primarily during the early morning hours before I had to leave for college. If you have trouble understanding me, click the CC button in the bottom corner to enable the subtitles, which I have edited to say the correct stuff. Also go check out my new video on build a staccato QCW Tesla coil (much better quality): ruclips.net/video/MWlDGUHWMXw/видео.html
Are you familiar with DONALD L. SMITH and his energy generating devices using a Tesla coil as the driving device? He uses the extremely high voltage with low amperage to then drop the frequency back down to 60 Hz and then through a step down isolation transformer to get MAINS current at a greatly increased output compared to input.
Finally, a video that explains the important stuff you need to know about tesla coils. Thanks for making this! I plan on trying to make one, and this video definitely helps!
Thank YOU for watching this! I might do a follow up sometime in the future, since the video quality here isn't the best it could be and there is still much MUCH more to share about building a Tesla coil. If you're interested in Tesla coils, you'll be happy to hear that I'm currently collaborating with Jay from Plasma Channel as well as another, smaller RUclipsr to make a tutorial on the world's simplest SSTC! Stay tuned!
I've been watching your videos back to back and over and over to help fill in my understanding of resonant circuits and electronics in general. Thanks for such great content and cool to see you're still uploading!
I’ve been wanting to try this for years now, I appreciate your sharing of the process and the components that will work and the ones that will most likely fail. Thanks again for sharing
No problem, should be coming out with another Tesla coil video soon. If all goes well, it should be a collaboration featuring Jay from Plasma Channel (a big-time high voltage RUclipsr)!
You CAN...just shouldn't. Some large, well-built ceramic capacitor will last for a while in a Tesla coil circuit (like "doorknob" capacitors), but the small ones you typically get for cheap will just incinerate. Ceramic capacitors tend to overheat at high frequencies, but that's not their main issue. The main issue is that their voltage rating drops off significantly as the applied frequency increases. For example, a 1kVDC ceramic capacitor might be able to handle only 200VAC when operated at 300kHz (300kHz would typically constitute a fairly large Tesla coil). As frequency increases, the capacitor's breakdown voltage decreases. For a small Tesla coil with a 700kHz resonant frequency, that same 1kVDC ceramic capacitor might only be able to handle 100VAC! That is why it's usually best to stay away from ceramic capacitors when building a spark gap Tesla coil.
Mate this is by far the best one I,ve seen and I,ve seen a lot on how to build Tesla coils. You also explained the phisics and inductance in a easy way. I am trying to build my first one and have been having trouble because I,m having to learn electronics, electricity and magnetics from RUclips cheers
Thanks for the comment (and subscription), glad I could help in you! I really was hoping to make Tesla coils as non-confusing as possible for people wanting to build one. Believe me, when I first started out, I thought an oil burner transformer was like some kind of oil-powered generator or something, so I was pretty lost. It makes me happy to know I've helped eliminate the confusion of a few other people. I'm currently collaborating with Plasma Channel (~140k subs) and another smaller channel to make the guide to the world's simplest solid-state Tesla coil, so stay tuned! Happy holidays, and good luck on your Tesla coil!
@@LabCoatz_Science Thanks mate, glad you replied. I will now edit my comment, you see why, don't want everyone seeing that. lol. Yer I,ve been learning for a year now and learnt a lot, but there's so much more to learn. Will check that your other vids soon. cheers
Glad you appreciate it! Hopefully RUclips doesn't take this down for copyright infringement, but the music fit too perfectly to not use it! Better than the typical techno-pop music everyone uses, in my opinion.
This is amazing production quality for such a small channel! Most informative video on actually building a tesla coil I've seen so far. Any plans on doing a similar video on Solid state/ musical tesla coils?
Yes, in fact! I'm currently doing a collaboration with Plasma Channel and another smaller channel on how to build the world's simplest SSTC with the greatest output (hopefully over a few inches). No finicky driver IC's, no tuning, just pure SSTC power! Stay tuned!
@@LabCoatz_Science If I'm not mistaken, diodegonewild already did it with very few components & without any GDT. He also explained everything very clearly. Just take a close look at his SSTC videos, you'll see that his SSTC isn't that difficult at all. He's a great coiler too. Jmartis & Teslista 555, those guys too have done great built too.
If only you knew, my friend! Next video will be RUclips's biggest Tesla coil collaboration, and I will be building a true, half-bridge SSTC, as well as giving away some PCB's for it! So far, it's looking like my best coil yet, and the video will be super informative on the somewhat obscure topic of H-bridge SSTCs! Stay tuned for that!
Glad you enjoyed my video! It may not be a DRSSTC, but I'm going to be posting a how-to on the world's simplest SSTC very soon! I collaborated with two other channels to make it happen (including Jay from Plasma Channel), and the results are reproducible and very spectacular (over 5" sparks from my 7" coil). Soon to follow, I'll be making a how-to on building a universal interrupter for it. Stay tuned!
@@LabCoatz_Science THAT GONNA BE SUPER HELPFUL FOR MANY PEOPLE. WHEN I BUILT MY FIRST DRSSTC/ SSTC WAS HARD CUZ I DID’NT UNDERSTAND A LOT OF THINGS AND STILL THIS DAYS IM ALWAYS READING AND TRYING TO UNDERSTAND MANY THINGS WITH THE DRIVER CUZ MY ENGLISH IS NOT THE BEST AND I NEED TO COPY AND PASTE MANY ARTICLES TO THE GOOGLE TRANSLATE PROGRAM TO UNDERSTAND A BIT, LOL. MANY PEOPLE LIKE ME LEARN QUICKER OR BETTER JUST BY WATCHING OTHERS. THANKS AND I’ll BE WAITING FOR THAT. HAPPY NEW YEAR FOR YOU A YOUR FAMILY.
@@tonyvtech25 Happy New Year to you too! My video will be out within the month, hope it helps you understand SSTC science a little better! I walk through a lot of the details and discoveries I made about the circuit, and include a lot of visuals to help show what I mean (plus a parts list in the video description!). The production quality is also going to be much better, so I'm hoping the video does well and lots of people see it and learn from it!
I've considered, but they're more finicky to work with, have more sensitive parts (like IGBT's), and can get pretty costly. I have built a SSTC, though, but it was a SUPER dumbed down version that was basically a slayer exciter. It was based off of Keystone Science's desktop SSTC, but had a more potent MOSFET and I plugged it directly into rectified mains with a ~2A capacitive ballast. It works great (for a mini coil), so I might post a vid of that once I get it back up and running again (I blew out the MOSFET after trying to add an Arduino interrupter and putting in 10A instead of 2A. It was cool while it lasted...).
@@LabCoatz_Science The "flyback" sstc blows up all MOSFETs/IGBT instantly, because of the huge inductive voltage spikes. You have to use half bridge with a GDT to achieve a DRSSTC operation + half bridge clamps the voltage of the IGBTS to the power supply voltage. Driver alone is pretty much in range of 20$, the costliest things are the bus capacitors,MMC, interrupter and the IGBTs.. Of course it's not easy and takes some time to get all the required knowledge, but the results are really worth it.
@@panjak323 True. I love DRSSTC and SGTC for different reasons. I love DRSSTC because of their highly-controllable BPS/duty cycle, their quieter nature (they lack a noisy spark gap, as you well know), and their efficiency. I love SGTC because of their robust nature, simplicity, and straight raw power. For generating gigantic arcs, I go for a SGTC. For smaller, quiet indoor arcs, I enjoy my mini SSTC running in CW mode (it's fairly quiet, aside from the low 60Hz hum from the rectified mains). When I started building my SSTC, I knew it wouldn't be super efficient and the MOSFETs would likely have a hard time, so I took the easy route (opposed to just building a better circuit) and crammed in the most powerful MOSFET I could find for a good price (mine was a 1kW IXFQ60N50P3's from Digikey for about $7). It did what I wanted and ran well at low power (made nice 1" sparks at 1-2A input at 170VDC. Again, not super efficient, but hey! the FET was cool to the touch!), but I got greedy and overpowered it. Now, I'll probably order a new MOSFET and keep it under 2A this time around. If I was to ever build a DRSSTC, I would make a QCW model (of course, that would probably cost me quite a good sum of money, and I know very little about how to get one working. Ah well, one can dream). Good luck on your future coil building!
Glad you liked it! Wish I had the equipment/knowledge a few years ago to make this video even better, but it's still pretty alright for what it is. I'm much more proud of my latest Tesla coil video's quality, lol!
Thanks! If I recall correctly, I just wrapped the magnet wire from the secondary directly onto the steel bolt that helped mount the topload. I honestly could've just use some tape though, lol.
Hi Great Job, thx for the nice Video. One question... how can i Control the coil? -> Playing Music on it etc. I mean what Controller or how is this working? I know its about controlling the sparks because they are creating heat in the Air wich then causes the Air to extend... but how to build an Controller?
Spark gap coils are basically incapable of playing music. The only means you have for controlling this type of coil is either adjusting the rotary gap's firing rate or varying the input power. If you want music, you'll have to look into solid state Tesla coils or DRSSTC's. Hope that helps!
Hello LabCoatz! Could you please help me? Do you think that 0.2mm wire is thick enough? (2k turns, 0.4m tall) If you have time to help, I can send you more details. Thank you in advance!
Does the spark in the spark gap get initialized by the high voltage from transformers output or from the capacitor reaching a certain voltage? I never understood this part
Technically, it would be the voltage in the capacitor, although the capacitor charges so fast in a Tesla coil, it may as well be the transformer initializing the gap.
Amazing! Well thought out and beautifully explained. Super under-appreciated content, couldn't believe a video of this high quality came from a channel with under 200 subs. I subscribed and I'm looking forward to more videos in the future :)
Glad you liked it! If it's extreme science you like, you've come to the right channel! I'm hoping to have a new video out before Christmas on how to make the world's simplest (and cheapest) solid state Tesla coil. I'm collaborating with Jay from Plasma Channel and another smaller channel in that video, so stay tuned!
💯💯What you said at the end!! all the actual, important, needed, information you had asked when first getting started with yours! from someone with knowledge from actually doing it themselves! I feel so let down when I finish half the how to videos, like a lot of the do it yourself video guys need to be do it themselves first! 🤪 Lots of amazing useful screenshots from this video I will be referring to in the near future! That’s for sure! You got some Crazy results! Looking forward to seeing what else you do with your channel! Thanks man!
Thank you very much, glad you liked it! I'm currently collaborating with Jay from Plasma Channel and another smaller channel to make a how-to video on the world's simplest solid state Tesla coil. The production quality is going to be far better, and the results are rather impressive! I'm also going to make a video on Tesla coil optimization (to help cover some additional stuff I didn't quite cover in this video) and a how-to on a super simple universal interrupter. Stay tuned, my friend!
LabCoatz that’s wicked man!! Looking forward to seeing!!! I actually just recently started keeping up with Jay’s Channel! -I weld, and have always been technically inclined so I Started myself off with Jay’s Arc lighter voltage multiplier, yea I’m hooked loll 🤪 But I’ve Always wanted to build one of these! the plethora that is physics got distracting however hahah ..first ended up getting really into lasers and coming up with some.. trippy? Neato pictures! trying to make my own galvanometers.. @hd_laser_art on Insta if you’re at all interested in some science art stuff? 🤷🏻♂️🤪 ..then microscopy, converged the two and planned out my own laser confocal microscope-currently resource limited 😛 And just last night got my CRT TV oscilloscope working correctly! Super cool hah but I’m just finally at the stop in my journey where I’m starting to put all the little things I’ve learned about circuit building together! And I neeed some plasma in my life ⚡️⚡️ So thank you kindly sir 🙇🏻♂️
Not really, honestly. Besides being ridiculously expensive (my whole triple-MOT coil cost less than a single one), the capacitance range is very small: typically 1nF or less. An adjustable/tappable primary coil is truly the way to go when it comes to coil tuning: it yields the best results, and it's the cheapest! Vacuum caps would be best for vacuum tube coils, since they require lower voltages and lower capacitances (even then, the cost is still pretty extreme).
Thanks, good to know. Good thing I work for a Fortune 500 Power Generation company with lots of old storage that needs sorting out - assuming they let me take 'trash'. 🙂 They have some good capacitor banks laying around, and lots of other useful tid bits. I have some radium-doped spark gap vacuum tubes (JAN-CW-IB22 - Western Electric yr. 1945) I'd like to use on a rig (It's ridiculous, they have printed on them: "WARNING This tube contains Radium. After it has served its useful life, do not open and examine. Old tubes should be sunk in the ocean or buried." - that's 1940's radiation/environmental knowledge for you).
It honestly doesn't matter, as long as it's thicker than about 20AWG. I think mine was 16AWG, and I just pulled it out of an old appliance's electrical cable.
@@timetojit8917 Not really. Inductance only adds when the inductors are in series (which is why adding more turns is the best way to add inductance and tune a Tesla coil). You will get a higher current-carrying capacity though, and possibly better performance!
Could you please tell me if the Tesla Coil could be used with a small generator to power a large home? How would you connect it to your home for energy?
I mean, you MIGHT be able to if you built it large enough, but it would be utterly pointless and very wasteful. Only 20% of the primary energy gets coupled to the secondary coil, meaning 80% of your generator's power gets thrown away. And of the 20% that gets transmitted, a decent portion would be simply grounded and not used at all...not to mention all sensitive electronics (TV, phones, etc) would be damaged or destroyed. Plus, to use the energy, you would need a receiver circuit, and if that is connected to your home wiring like mains voltage normally is...it'd just be pointless, why not hook up the generator and get 100% of the energy?
hey, what capacitance of capacitor should i use for dual oven transformersand should i use any kind of ballast since you didn't use any ballast. and Is it better to have higher BPS? thanks
The capacitance can be literally any value you want it to be. The primary resonant frequency is determined by the primary capacitance (supplied by the capacitor) and the primary inductance (determined by the build of the primary coil). As long as the primary resonant frequency is close to the secondary resonant frequency, then the coil will work well. I would recommend using JavaTC (link in the video description) to make sure the frequencies match. All you have to do is put in the values you want (it's mostly things like your coil's height, number of turns, etc.) and play around with the them until the frequencies match. Dual MOT coils thrive with higher capacitances (typically more than 40nF, or 0.04uF). You're question is actually VERY similar to a question I had as I built the coil in the video. I was worried that an unballasted MOT coil would trip my 15A home breaker, and therefore not operate. I tried ballasting it at first, using a 2kW heater array (two 1kW heating elements in parallel), but the output sputtered as the spark gap struggled to fire (dual MOT coils are notoriously finicky with spark gaps, as I have learned, which is why I added another MOT, which fixed the firing issues). As a last ditch effort, I took away all ballasting and plugged it directly in and the whole thing roared to life! Others have had breakers trip, though, so I'd say only ballast if your coil has trouble tripping your breaker. In regards to BPS, it is entirely up to you. I'd recommend watching this video to help you decide: ruclips.net/video/Sm8SoFmnlLM/видео.html. It compares lower BPS to higher BPS, and does a pretty good job showing the differences. One thing to note: BPS rarely alters the spark length, but does tend to make your coil draw more power (and possibly trip the breaker). Best of luck in your Tesla coil building endeavors, I'm happy to answer any questions!
@@BIGRIP87 I've actually never seen this formula before. Any idea what it is used for? It appears similar (in some ways) to the maximum usable capacitance formula I gave, but also like the formula for finding the resonant frequency, which is f=1/(2*pi*sqrt{C*L}). I've never seen it used, so I can't vouch for its accuracy in Tesla coil design (then again, it might be a really well-known and accurate formula that I've just never seen before).
Glad you liked it! Most high voltage transformers (aside from television flyback transformers) just plug straight into your ordinary home wall socket. The coil I built uses three microwave oven transformers with outputs in series to power it, and it can be ran from a ordinary 15-amp plug. The primary's of the transformers are connected in electrical parallel, and properly phased so the outputs add together instead of cancelling out. Hope that helps!
You could build one as tall as a skyscraper or as small as a desk toy, if you have the money and materials. Realistically, the largest pipe diameter you could probably find for a coil is 12" (although that will set you back a few hundred dollars), which could be be used to make a 6-foot secondary coil.
My father recently passed away and while going through his workshop, I ran across what looks like a Tesla coil he built while teaching his VO-Tech electronics class. Mom says it quit working a few years after he built it and he never got around to making the repairs. I would like to revive his Tesla coil project and get it working again but I'm not sure where to start. Any advice?
Assuming it's a spark gap Tesla coil like the ones in this video, it should have the same circuit layout and all of the same basic parts: two coils (one large coil made with thin magnet wire and one small one made with thicker wire or pipe), a capacitor bank, a power supply (usually some kind of heavy, iron-core transformer that produces the high voltage), and the spark gap. Check all the parts and see if anything is broken. As long as the transformer produces high voltage, the spark gap fires, the capacitors are not shorted, and the coils are in tune (they likely are if your father had it working before), then it should work. My best advice is to learn as much about them as possible (and be safe, of course) and don't give up. I put a lot of links in this video's description that should be quite useful. Hope that helps, feel free to reach out again if you have trouble!
@@LabCoatz_Science I have not plugged it in yet but there is a tall coil made of insulated copper wire very similar to yours and a primary coil much smaller near the bottom of the secondary coil. There is a iron core transformer and what looks like an automotive coil connected in the circuit. I'm wondering if the coil fills the role of a capacitor. There is not a top load on the secondary coil like yours but there is a large heavy gage wire sticking out the top. There is another long heavy gage wire coming from the base up to the top of the secondary coil...I assume that a spark jumps between the two heavy wires when turned on but I don't know for sure. I have not traced the longer of the two heavy gage wires to know what it attaches to at the bottom. I would like to send you some photos...maybe to an email address? I really learned a lot from your video and I appreciate the way you make electricity understandable.
@@dalefonville2482 Sure, feel free to email me at zlabcoatz@gmail.com! The wire at the bottom of the secondary coil (the larger coil) should just connect to ground. If it's not connected to ground, the output tends to be much weaker, from my experience. And that "automotive coil" could very well be the capacitor (especially if it has markings on it like uF or nF, which symbolize microfarads and nanofarads, the units of capacitance). Send me a bunch of photos and I'll do my best to analyze them!
@@LabCoatz_Science Sounds good. I'm at work right now but I'll take some photos this evening and send them your way tomorrow. Thanks again for taking time to help me out.
I am thinking about building a SGTC with a small 5kv 5ma neon sign transformer, an older non GFI transformer. I am having trouble choosing a capacitor,should I go withan older 6KVDC cap, or wire up some dublier caps? I don't like MOT'S because I want kinda toy type TC, that won't kill me should something go wrong. I was going to go with two brass balls with an adjustable, Nylon bolt to adjust gap. I will have to use the program to work out the amount of wire for my primary and secondary. I am thinking this coil might output 150,000- 200,000 KV if properly adjusted and tuned
excellent video, but i am a bit puzzeld with your rotary spark gap device....hmmmm how does it work ? and why two simple screw with a gap is not good enough ?
This video has been an amazing help but I was wondering what I would have to do so that I could play music through it. I know that it plays music by increasing and decreasing the frequency at which it emits the sparks but I'm not sure how.
Thanks for the question! It would be extremely hard to play music through a spark gap Tesla coil (in fact, nobody has even done it yet). The so-called "musical Tesla coils" are all solid state (SSTC's or DRSSTC's). Essentially, a Tesla coil plays music by altering the BPS, which in turn changes the sound the arc makes. Spark gap coils would be hard-pressed to do this, since the BPS is determined by the speed of a rotary gap's motor. However, with a solid state coil, the coil's driving currents are switched on and off by transistors, so making music is much easier. Hope that's helpful! If you have any other questions, feel free to ask!
With small coils, nearly nothing (except maybe some scorching of the skin, if you touch the arcs directly). With medium coils, like this one, you'd feel your muscles contract, and if the output is high enough, you may experience issues... even death, with larger units. My general rule of thumb: don't touch sparks larger than 2 feet (1 foot if you wanna be safe, and never with a pacemaker).
I am very pleased you are in the coiler community! Very nice video, I have always loved Tesla Coils (including SGTCs, VTTCs, ISSTCs, DRSSTCs Audio Modulated DRSSTCs, Slayer Exciter and also the Ballasted Slayer Exciter ones). Very nice tutorial, be wary about the secondary windings in your MOTs however, they are picky about high frequency kickback. However you have designed the Spark Gap in parallel with the secondary (by far the best choice because the gap shunts the high frequency kickback through itself). Also I'm surprised to see you use MOTs that are not Ballasted. How long does it take for them to get too hot?
Thanks! I've honestly never run the coil for over fifteen second bursts (not really sure why), and the MOT's barely get warm after a few of these runs. I was worried about using unballasted MOTs too (since they draw so much current), but somehow, the coil hasn't tripped the breaker yet, and nothing has failed in the years that I've had it. Not that surprising, actually, since I rarely run the big coil. The spark gap has been super hard to maintain, and I'm still trying to set up one that works reliably, lol! The original one worked fine for a few runs, but these large coils chew through steel electrodes like candy, so it was eventually worn down too much to fire.
@@LabCoatz_Science Same as you man, I'm trying to figure out a vacuum quenched spark gap same as those Epcos spark gap type. Have a look at my little video "Amazing little desktop spark gap tesla coil". There are several videos. Look at the one where you'll find I've quenched my spark gap in a small plastic bottle. It was silent & gave me great output. Thanks for your videos. They are all great. Keep it up Norman.
Hello, I read at teslacoildesign where metallized or metal film capacitors should not be used. You are using self-healing capacitors. Are they metal film?
I gotta know .. how did you wire 3 mots in series wouldn't that mean the third one had the total of all 3 going through it did you sink them in oil did you have 2 on opposite phases and the third was for current limiting.lol Id appreciate answers to as much of this as you can lol inquiring minds and all
I did, it's a basic spark gap Tesla coil schematic: spark gap in parallel with the power supply, capacitor bank and primary coil in series after spark gap, and a secondary coil with one end connected to ground.
How did you know the value of capacitance sir? Are you familiar with Mr Don Smith's Resonance coil system sir? I would love to reproduce his work and it involves resonance and tuning which requires the type of components you have just demonstrated ( with great understanding I might add ) but I am at a loss to go about figuring the necessary values of components. Thank you sir for any advice.
One of the best tutorial for making tesla coil. It helped me to clear most of my doubts about tesla coil construction. I still have a doubt . I am gonna use a flyback transformer for powering the input coil. As a flyback generates high voltage sawtooth signals, do I really need to connect it via a spark gap and capacitor bank ??? As the saw tooth signal is itself an intermittent ramp, can i connect it directly to the primary coil ?
great video man! currently building one myself too, just a quick question, is a 8kV 30mA 25000Hz power supply a good idea to power one? it is a neon sign transformer and i put it in to one of those tesla coil calculators and i think it would work, but since you said something about how high frequency might not work im questioning my transformer choice. any thoughts?
Normally, high frequency power supplies are a bad idea for Tesla coil use, but they could theoretically be used if the output is rectified by high voltage diodes. Not sure how one of those new SMPS neon transformers would handle it though, it might just shut down from some internal protection circuit. Your best (cheap) option for a Tesla coil power supply is probably one of those ZVS/flyback combos you can find on eBay, Amazon, etc for under $50. I've seen people get arcs over a foot long with one of those (although they do require a 20-30VDC power supply, which'd cost another $20 or so). I actually wrote about transformer selection on my Tesla coil website here: diytesla.wixsite.com/coil/transformers-controls. My personal favorite power source is the microwave transformer, since they are cheap, robust, and EXTREMELY powerful (stringing three of four in series will get you power equivalent to a powerline transformer). Hope that helps!
Thanks! I was really hoping other people would find this helpful, and it looks like the video is finally getting out there. I was kinda worried people would see it as just another low-quality RUclips vid and be put off by the somewhat poor audio balance (in my opinion) or music choice (Metallica isn't for everyone). I'm still pretty new to YouTubing, so I'm still trying to find out what works best. Comments like yours truly help me gauge how people feel about my content, so thanks for commenting!
Hi Zack, I’ve followed your circuit and have successfully built my first ever tesla coil. Heartfelt thanks and appreciation for your efforts. Just for the sake of safety, can you suggest, by your experience, which are the major components to fail in this circuit apart from Mosfet and its driver in case of a flash in pcb?
In the solid-state circuits, the most likely things to fail after the MOSFETs/IGBTs are the TVS diodes across the transistor drain and source (if they are present), then the bridge rectifier, and finally, any of the small ICs (mainly the UCC driver). I've never killed a 74HC14, 7812, 7805, or any non-logic component, but I have accidentally killed a few 555 timers because of misconnections, and a UCC27425 once or twice by pushing the duty cycle too high on the interrupter.
Thanks for the info. I’m checking the board with a scope and the GDT is buzzing as expected. Output from MOSFET is less than half of input (supplying 30VDC for testing). The output from the antenna does not vary at all (200mV square wave, unreliable frequency). I’m struggling to figure out the solution.
Finally, it’s done. It’s important to check the soldering in pads after a flash. Sometimes they do get damaged. Resoldering suspected areas fixed this.
They're labelled as polypropylene film capacitors, so I'd have to say yes. The datasheet also mentions that they are double-metallized, which doesn't hurt either. Overall, I think a bank of these MKP caps would hold up nicely in a Tesla coil!
@@LabCoatz_Science Thank Your very much Sir, and the fast reply! One more question, if its not a problem. If I have 3 MOT, the peak voltage will be 9kV near, so I make 20kV voltage rating MMC it will handle well (?) (My plan is to put 15 R76 cap in series so I will get 24kV, 66nF)
@@mrdsandras No problem! 20kV should be plenty, in fact, the 3 MOT coil I built in my video uses a 66nF MMC bank rated at only 18kV, and it is still fully operational after all this time. I'm happy to answer almost any question you or anyone else may have. Knowledge is what make the world go round! Hope to see some video of your coil sir, I'm sure it will be most impressive.
LabCoatz Thank You very much! You are so kind, Im going to subscribe your channel, keep doing, awesome content! So Im going to buy this type of capacitors, and If it finished, somehow I show you!
@@LabCoatz_Science Thank you for such a great video, explaining everything really good. I'm a little bit curious though regardning the voltage for the capacitors. In your example you use 15 1200 volt capacitors, mentioning that the voltage of the complete MMC should be 3 times higher than the output from the transformer. At some point in the video you can see one capacitor that says 1200 VDC, shouldn't the value be calculated for AC? When I'm looking for capacitors at different places, it often ends up that many of them has about 3 times lower AC than DC. I'm thinking if this might be the reason why you need such a higher voltage compared to the MOT's output. What's your thought? I Also wanted to ask if you could explain a little bit more, maybe make an example of calculating the maximum useable capacitance? I've been using JAVA TC, TeslaMap, and some other calculators to figure things up, but I do not seem to get the numbers right. Thank's in advance.
It's just a generic spark gap Tesla coil. I put the schematic in the video at timestamp 7:16, and all of the main details (like what components I used) can be found after timestamp 9:08. Here is another schematic I found in a simple google search: www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=%2FztbgJal&id=E574FC5EE93360A65C69E1BB0BF7FD2A20670FD8&thid=OIP._ztbgJalzxSp57YnA9hdKQHaEx&mediaurl=https%3A%2F%2Fth.bing.com%2Fth%2Fid%2FRff3b5b8096a5cf14a9e7b62703d85d29%3Frik%3D2A9nICr99wu74Q%26riu%3Dhttp%253a%252f%252fupload.wikimedia.org%252fwikipedia%252fcommons%252fthumb%252f2%252f24%252fTesla_coil_4.svg%252f640px-Tesla_coil_4.svg.png%26ehk%3D4YG9Gl4HLF%252fpUy%252fKI3z5GrfJlz9Y8Pyn7BMpCfPhSSw%253d%26risl%3D%26pid%3DImgRaw&exph=412&expw=640&q=tesla+coil+diagram&simid=608046183006997203&ck=826CD76C9A708DB950B5154B4392A06A&selectedindex=1&form=IRPRST&ajaxhist=0&pivotparams=insightsToken%3Dccid_2F%252FQGWz%252F*cp_3434071514D214D43BB3C0CF414A078E*mid_2373A422E93CFDB772F3A28D2AAA13BA6D19AC00*simid_608042313309291749*thid_OIP.2F!_QGWz!_svqnzhFJPKrnwwHaEw&vt=0&sim=11&iss=VSI&ajaxhist=0
I am fascinated with this design and love to build one TC myself. Could you help me with a little more detailed schema , construction design and the reference of components and where to buy?
How did you wire up the 3 microwave transformers (not that they are in series i mean how did you connect them to the power outlet) Amazing video btw!!!
Sorry for talking so quietly, this was recorded primarily during the early morning hours before I had to leave for college. If you have trouble understanding me, click the CC button in the bottom corner to enable the subtitles, which I have edited to say the correct stuff. Also go check out my new video on build a staccato QCW Tesla coil (much better quality): ruclips.net/video/MWlDGUHWMXw/видео.html
BATTERY!!!!!!
Are you familiar with DONALD L. SMITH and his energy generating devices using a Tesla coil as the driving device? He uses the extremely high voltage with low amperage to then drop the frequency back down to 60 Hz and then through a step down isolation transformer to get MAINS current at a greatly increased output compared to input.
Could you point me in the direction of the ideal capacitor? I want to build a really big tesla coil but I want to get the right capacitor.
Excellent work. Don't mind low sound decibel. That is your decency
Finally, a video that explains the important stuff you need to know about tesla coils. Thanks for making this! I plan on trying to make one, and this video definitely helps!
Thank YOU for watching this! I might do a follow up sometime in the future, since the video quality here isn't the best it could be and there is still much MUCH more to share about building a Tesla coil. If you're interested in Tesla coils, you'll be happy to hear that I'm currently collaborating with Jay from Plasma Channel as well as another, smaller RUclipsr to make a tutorial on the world's simplest SSTC! Stay tuned!
Congrats man , one of the best videos I’ve watched so far about Tesla coils, keep it up bro ⚡️.
Thanks man, I plan to!
Can you shut off NANOTECHNOLOGY mind Kontrol military grade v2k?????please help me from America....they try to make sexual slavery!!!!
I've been watching your videos back to back and over and over to help fill in my understanding of resonant circuits and electronics in general. Thanks for such great content and cool to see you're still uploading!
I’ve been wanting to try this for years now, I appreciate your sharing of the process and the components that will work and the ones that will most likely fail. Thanks again for sharing
The best video you can ever get for a Tesla coil thanks a lot man!
This is the best Tesla build I've seen in my life
Nice video! I've been building coils since middle school. I couldn't give better advice myself!
Good job dude. I'm here from the collab video. Congrats on the 1k subs
Thanks! Just wait until you see the collab I'm doing with Jay on his channel, Plasma Channel! 😉
@@LabCoatz_Science omg sounds awesome 👍⚡
Thank you so very much for your excellent detailed explanation of your Tesla coil! Also love you choice of music! Rock on!!!
Loved the video and music choices 🤘🤘
Metallica FOREVER man!
The best intelligent detailed explanation of Tesla coil and its fundamental I have seen. Thanks 🙏
Very useful. I didn't think I'd learn that much since I've built a tesla coil, but I actually ended up learning a lot. Thanks!
No problem, should be coming out with another Tesla coil video soon. If all goes well, it should be a collaboration featuring Jay from Plasma Channel (a big-time high voltage RUclipsr)!
@@LabCoatz_Science OOoo that would be so cool! Can't wait!
5:34 You can't use CERAMIC capacitors in a high frequency circuit???
You CAN...just shouldn't. Some large, well-built ceramic capacitor will last for a while in a Tesla coil circuit (like "doorknob" capacitors), but the small ones you typically get for cheap will just incinerate. Ceramic capacitors tend to overheat at high frequencies, but that's not their main issue. The main issue is that their voltage rating drops off significantly as the applied frequency increases. For example, a 1kVDC ceramic capacitor might be able to handle only 200VAC when operated at 300kHz (300kHz would typically constitute a fairly large Tesla coil). As frequency increases, the capacitor's breakdown voltage decreases. For a small Tesla coil with a 700kHz resonant frequency, that same 1kVDC ceramic capacitor might only be able to handle 100VAC! That is why it's usually best to stay away from ceramic capacitors when building a spark gap Tesla coil.
@@LabCoatz_Science I see
I thought I had seen this one at first, apparently not. Fantastic work here, and very well explained!
That's epic o.o
Mate this is by far the best one I,ve seen and I,ve seen a lot on how to build Tesla coils. You also explained the phisics and inductance in a easy way. I am trying to build my first one and have been having trouble because I,m having to learn electronics, electricity and magnetics from RUclips cheers
Thanks for the comment (and subscription), glad I could help in you! I really was hoping to make Tesla coils as non-confusing as possible for people wanting to build one. Believe me, when I first started out, I thought an oil burner transformer was like some kind of oil-powered generator or something, so I was pretty lost. It makes me happy to know I've helped eliminate the confusion of a few other people. I'm currently collaborating with Plasma Channel (~140k subs) and another smaller channel to make the guide to the world's simplest solid-state Tesla coil, so stay tuned! Happy holidays, and good luck on your Tesla coil!
@@LabCoatz_Science Thanks mate, glad you replied. I will now edit my comment, you see why, don't want everyone seeing that. lol. Yer I,ve been learning for a year now and learnt a lot, but there's so much more to learn. Will check that your other vids soon. cheers
Can you shut off NANOTECHNOLOGY mind Kontrol military grade v2k?????please help me from America....they try to make sexual slavery!!!!
Finally some badass music
Glad you appreciate it! Hopefully RUclips doesn't take this down for copyright infringement, but the music fit too perfectly to not use it! Better than the typical techno-pop music everyone uses, in my opinion.
@@LabCoatz_Science If you're worried about RUclips & their communism censorship start another channel or 2 for backups
@@inthemountainswithmeachum3256 Definitely something I will consider, good idea!
This is amazing production quality for such a small channel!
Most informative video on actually building a tesla coil I've seen so far.
Any plans on doing a similar video on Solid state/ musical tesla coils?
Yes, in fact! I'm currently doing a collaboration with Plasma Channel and another smaller channel on how to build the world's simplest SSTC with the greatest output (hopefully over a few inches). No finicky driver IC's, no tuning, just pure SSTC power! Stay tuned!
@@LabCoatz_Science If I'm not mistaken, diodegonewild already did it with very few components & without any GDT. He also explained everything very clearly. Just take a close look at his SSTC videos, you'll see that his SSTC isn't that difficult at all. He's a great coiler too. Jmartis & Teslista 555, those guys too have done great built too.
Excellent stuff. Hope you're planning on doing more (even more in depth) how to's on making tesla coils. This was awesome.
If only you knew, my friend! Next video will be RUclips's biggest Tesla coil collaboration, and I will be building a true, half-bridge SSTC, as well as giving away some PCB's for it! So far, it's looking like my best coil yet, and the video will be super informative on the somewhat obscure topic of H-bridge SSTCs! Stay tuned for that!
I WISH A VIDEO LIKE THIS WHEN I WAS BUILDING MY FIRST TESLA COIL FEW YEARS BACK. NOW WE NEED ONE FOR DRSSTC. BTW NICE VIDEO !!!!
Glad you enjoyed my video! It may not be a DRSSTC, but I'm going to be posting a how-to on the world's simplest SSTC very soon! I collaborated with two other channels to make it happen (including Jay from Plasma Channel), and the results are reproducible and very spectacular (over 5" sparks from my 7" coil). Soon to follow, I'll be making a how-to on building a universal interrupter for it. Stay tuned!
@@LabCoatz_Science THAT GONNA BE SUPER HELPFUL FOR MANY PEOPLE. WHEN I BUILT MY FIRST DRSSTC/ SSTC WAS HARD CUZ I DID’NT UNDERSTAND A LOT OF THINGS AND STILL THIS DAYS IM ALWAYS READING AND TRYING TO UNDERSTAND MANY THINGS WITH THE DRIVER CUZ MY ENGLISH IS NOT THE BEST AND I NEED TO COPY AND PASTE MANY ARTICLES TO THE GOOGLE TRANSLATE PROGRAM TO UNDERSTAND A BIT, LOL. MANY PEOPLE LIKE ME LEARN QUICKER OR BETTER JUST BY WATCHING OTHERS. THANKS AND I’ll BE WAITING FOR THAT. HAPPY NEW YEAR FOR YOU A YOUR FAMILY.
@@tonyvtech25 Happy New Year to you too! My video will be out within the month, hope it helps you understand SSTC science a little better! I walk through a lot of the details and discoveries I made about the circuit, and include a lot of visuals to help show what I mean (plus a parts list in the video description!). The production quality is also going to be much better, so I'm hoping the video does well and lots of people see it and learn from it!
Can you shut off NANOTECHNOLOGY mind Kontrol military grade v2k?????please help me from America....they try to make sexual slavery!!!!
Underrated youtuber
Now make a DRSSTC, has it's own challenges. But the things you can do with it are just awesome.
I've considered, but they're more finicky to work with, have more sensitive parts (like IGBT's), and can get pretty costly. I have built a SSTC, though, but it was a SUPER dumbed down version that was basically a slayer exciter. It was based off of Keystone Science's desktop SSTC, but had a more potent MOSFET and I plugged it directly into rectified mains with a ~2A capacitive ballast. It works great (for a mini coil), so I might post a vid of that once I get it back up and running again (I blew out the MOSFET after trying to add an Arduino interrupter and putting in 10A instead of 2A. It was cool while it lasted...).
@@LabCoatz_Science The "flyback" sstc blows up all MOSFETs/IGBT instantly, because of the huge inductive voltage spikes. You have to use half bridge with a GDT to achieve a DRSSTC operation + half bridge clamps the voltage of the IGBTS to the power supply voltage. Driver alone is pretty much in range of 20$, the costliest things are the bus capacitors,MMC, interrupter and the IGBTs..
Of course it's not easy and takes some time to get all the required knowledge, but the results are really worth it.
@@panjak323 True. I love DRSSTC and SGTC for different reasons. I love DRSSTC because of their highly-controllable BPS/duty cycle, their quieter nature (they lack a noisy spark gap, as you well know), and their efficiency. I love SGTC because of their robust nature, simplicity, and straight raw power. For generating gigantic arcs, I go for a SGTC. For smaller, quiet indoor arcs, I enjoy my mini SSTC running in CW mode (it's fairly quiet, aside from the low 60Hz hum from the rectified mains). When I started building my SSTC, I knew it wouldn't be super efficient and the MOSFETs would likely have a hard time, so I took the easy route (opposed to just building a better circuit) and crammed in the most powerful MOSFET I could find for a good price (mine was a 1kW IXFQ60N50P3's from Digikey for about $7). It did what I wanted and ran well at low power (made nice 1" sparks at 1-2A input at 170VDC. Again, not super efficient, but hey! the FET was cool to the touch!), but I got greedy and overpowered it. Now, I'll probably order a new MOSFET and keep it under 2A this time around. If I was to ever build a DRSSTC, I would make a QCW model (of course, that would probably cost me quite a good sum of money, and I know very little about how to get one working. Ah well, one can dream). Good luck on your future coil building!
Very well done. Thank you for your hard earned knowledge.
Dude, you're sick. Love it.
EXTREMELY helpfull and well-explained video! I've always wanted to build a SGTC, and you made my life easier!
Great video, and awesome music!!
entertaining as hell, my man!
Glad you liked it! Wish I had the equipment/knowledge a few years ago to make this video even better, but it's still pretty alright for what it is. I'm much more proud of my latest Tesla coil video's quality, lol!
nice, I'll check your other stuff for sure
What type of capacitor do you use? i'm having trouble finding a good one
which newer metallica song us that in the beginning? i almost didnt catch it! off of death magnetic?
suicide and redemption
Yup!
Thank you very much for sharing information about Tesla coils... Your tutorial is easy to understand. Guess I'll put this on my to-do list😅
THANK YOU SO MUCH. Best explanation I’ve found by far.
My pleasure! My next video should be even better (if you like bigger SSTCs), so stay tuned!
Hey, great Video!
What did you use to connect the secondary to the toroid?
Thanks! If I recall correctly, I just wrapped the magnet wire from the secondary directly onto the steel bolt that helped mount the topload. I honestly could've just use some tape though, lol.
Hi Great Job, thx for the nice Video. One question... how can i Control the coil? -> Playing Music on it etc. I mean what Controller or how is this working? I know its about controlling the sparks because they are creating heat in the Air wich then causes the Air to extend... but how to build an Controller?
Spark gap coils are basically incapable of playing music. The only means you have for controlling this type of coil is either adjusting the rotary gap's firing rate or varying the input power. If you want music, you'll have to look into solid state Tesla coils or DRSSTC's. Hope that helps!
@@LabCoatz_Science thy for your answer, jeah that helps a lot ;)
perfect sound track, if only u could get it n sync. ur a g
Nice video bro,also great explanation 💪🏼⚡Keep going
Have you tested magnetic quenching vs air flow?
No, although air quenching is potentially much more powerful, making it more useful at higher power levels.
Wow now I want to build my own SGTC with a flyback transformer do you have any good capacitors to use?
Hello LabCoatz!
Could you please help me? Do you think that 0.2mm wire is thick enough? (2k turns, 0.4m tall)
If you have time to help, I can send you more details.
Thank you in advance!
Don't see why not, if you can wrap a coil with it and tune it, it will work. Just use JavaTC to do a few calculations and you'll be fine.
Thank you! I calculated some things by myself and with javaTC, and they were the same, so I hope it'll work;
Amazing video! :)
Does the spark in the spark gap get initialized by the high voltage from transformers output or from the capacitor reaching a certain voltage? I never understood this part
Technically, it would be the voltage in the capacitor, although the capacitor charges so fast in a Tesla coil, it may as well be the transformer initializing the gap.
Amazing! Well thought out and beautifully explained. Super under-appreciated content, couldn't believe a video of this high quality came from a channel with under 200 subs. I subscribed and I'm looking forward to more videos in the future :)
Glad you liked it! If it's extreme science you like, you've come to the right channel! I'm hoping to have a new video out before Christmas on how to make the world's simplest (and cheapest) solid state Tesla coil. I'm collaborating with Jay from Plasma Channel and another smaller channel in that video, so stay tuned!
Can you shut off NANOTECHNOLOGY mind Kontrol military grade v2k?????please help me from America....they try to make sexual slavery!!!!
love it! ty fir the great info and i personakky adore the heavy metal in the back xd
I thought you did a great job with the info, thanks.
💯💯What you said at the end!!
all the actual, important, needed, information you had asked when first getting started with yours! from someone with knowledge from actually doing it themselves!
I feel so let down when I finish half the how to videos, like a lot of the do it yourself video guys need to be do it themselves first! 🤪
Lots of amazing useful screenshots from this video I will be referring to in the near future! That’s for sure!
You got some Crazy results! Looking forward to seeing what else you do with your channel! Thanks man!
Thank you very much, glad you liked it! I'm currently collaborating with Jay from Plasma Channel and another smaller channel to make a how-to video on the world's simplest solid state Tesla coil. The production quality is going to be far better, and the results are rather impressive! I'm also going to make a video on Tesla coil optimization (to help cover some additional stuff I didn't quite cover in this video) and a how-to on a super simple universal interrupter. Stay tuned, my friend!
LabCoatz that’s wicked man!! Looking forward to seeing!!!
I actually just recently started keeping up with Jay’s Channel!
-I weld, and have always been technically inclined
so I Started myself off with Jay’s Arc lighter voltage multiplier, yea I’m hooked loll 🤪
But I’ve Always wanted to build one of these!
the plethora that is physics got distracting however hahah
..first ended up getting really into lasers and coming up with some.. trippy? Neato pictures!
trying to make my own galvanometers.. @hd_laser_art on Insta if you’re at all interested in some science art stuff? 🤷🏻♂️🤪
..then microscopy,
converged the two and planned out my own laser confocal microscope-currently resource limited 😛
And just last night got my CRT TV oscilloscope working correctly! Super cool hah
but I’m just finally at the stop in my journey where I’m starting to put all the little things I’ve learned about circuit building together! And I neeed some plasma in my life ⚡️⚡️
So thank you kindly sir 🙇🏻♂️
youre awesome bro
When you can choose between foil capacitors and Doorknob capacitors, wich would you choose and why?
Nice work mate! 🙂
Loved the use of Metallica...it so fit the moment mood
Wouldn't bolt-on-vacuum capacitors be best..?
Not really, honestly. Besides being ridiculously expensive (my whole triple-MOT coil cost less than a single one), the capacitance range is very small: typically 1nF or less. An adjustable/tappable primary coil is truly the way to go when it comes to coil tuning: it yields the best results, and it's the cheapest! Vacuum caps would be best for vacuum tube coils, since they require lower voltages and lower capacitances (even then, the cost is still pretty extreme).
Thanks, good to know.
Good thing I work for a Fortune 500 Power Generation company with lots of old storage that needs sorting out - assuming they let me take 'trash'. 🙂 They have some good capacitor banks laying around, and lots of other useful tid bits.
I have some radium-doped spark gap vacuum tubes (JAN-CW-IB22 - Western Electric yr. 1945) I'd like to use on a rig (It's ridiculous, they have printed on them: "WARNING This tube contains Radium. After it has served its useful life, do not open and examine. Old tubes should be sunk in the ocean or buried." - that's 1940's radiation/environmental knowledge for you).
can you please help me understad why that type of wire is called " coated magnet wire " , will this experiment work with ordinary copper wire ?
Magnet wire has an insulating coating.
@@douglasstrother6584 thanks , but is there any magnetic substance on em ?
@@fahdneutron No, just wire with an insulating coating.
@@douglasstrother6584 thank you so much sir
Is there any more certain advancement we can do for increasing its efficiency..
Waiting for your response....
Sounds like Master of Puppets, looks like Ride the Lightning. Probably really smelled like ozone lol. I approve.
How many mm was the primary coil wire
It honestly doesn't matter, as long as it's thicker than about 20AWG. I think mine was 16AWG, and I just pulled it out of an old appliance's electrical cable.
@@LabCoatz_Science thanks for replying man
@@LabCoatz_Science and quick question if i were to get to insulated wires, put them parellel to eachother and connect them would that add inductance
@@timetojit8917 Not really. Inductance only adds when the inductors are in series (which is why adding more turns is the best way to add inductance and tune a Tesla coil). You will get a higher current-carrying capacity though, and possibly better performance!
@@LabCoatz_Science thanks so much man youve been a big help
Could you please tell me if the Tesla Coil could be used with a small generator to power a large home? How would you connect it to your home for energy?
I mean, you MIGHT be able to if you built it large enough, but it would be utterly pointless and very wasteful. Only 20% of the primary energy gets coupled to the secondary coil, meaning 80% of your generator's power gets thrown away. And of the 20% that gets transmitted, a decent portion would be simply grounded and not used at all...not to mention all sensitive electronics (TV, phones, etc) would be damaged or destroyed. Plus, to use the energy, you would need a receiver circuit, and if that is connected to your home wiring like mains voltage normally is...it'd just be pointless, why not hook up the generator and get 100% of the energy?
hey, what capacitance of capacitor should i use for dual oven transformersand should i use any kind of ballast since you didn't use any ballast.
and Is it better to have higher BPS?
thanks
The capacitance can be literally any value you want it to be. The primary resonant frequency is determined by the primary capacitance (supplied by the capacitor) and the primary inductance (determined by the build of the primary coil). As long as the primary resonant frequency is close to the secondary resonant frequency, then the coil will work well. I would recommend using JavaTC (link in the video description) to make sure the frequencies match. All you have to do is put in the values you want (it's mostly things like your coil's height, number of turns, etc.) and play around with the them until the frequencies match. Dual MOT coils thrive with higher capacitances (typically more than 40nF, or 0.04uF).
You're question is actually VERY similar to a question I had as I built the coil in the video. I was worried that an unballasted MOT coil would trip my 15A home breaker, and therefore not operate. I tried ballasting it at first, using a 2kW heater array (two 1kW heating elements in parallel), but the output sputtered as the spark gap struggled to fire (dual MOT coils are notoriously finicky with spark gaps, as I have learned, which is why I added another MOT, which fixed the firing issues). As a last ditch effort, I took away all ballasting and plugged it directly in and the whole thing roared to life! Others have had breakers trip, though, so I'd say only ballast if your coil has trouble tripping your breaker.
In regards to BPS, it is entirely up to you. I'd recommend watching this video to help you decide: ruclips.net/video/Sm8SoFmnlLM/видео.html. It compares lower BPS to higher BPS, and does a pretty good job showing the differences. One thing to note: BPS rarely alters the spark length, but does tend to make your coil draw more power (and possibly trip the breaker).
Best of luck in your Tesla coil building endeavors, I'm happy to answer any questions!
@@LabCoatz_Science thanks but what about this formula c=1/(2*pi*f*(v/i))
@@BIGRIP87 I've actually never seen this formula before. Any idea what it is used for? It appears similar (in some ways) to the maximum usable capacitance formula I gave, but also like the formula for finding the resonant frequency, which is f=1/(2*pi*sqrt{C*L}). I've never seen it used, so I can't vouch for its accuracy in Tesla coil design (then again, it might be a really well-known and accurate formula that I've just never seen before).
Well done! Great music choices too. Now how do me adapt this to the home and power it?
Glad you liked it! Most high voltage transformers (aside from television flyback transformers) just plug straight into your ordinary home wall socket. The coil I built uses three microwave oven transformers with outputs in series to power it, and it can be ran from a ordinary 15-amp plug. The primary's of the transformers are connected in electrical parallel, and properly phased so the outputs add together instead of cancelling out. Hope that helps!
Man, tanks a lot for this material, its awesome!
could i build these about pine tree size?
You could build one as tall as a skyscraper or as small as a desk toy, if you have the money and materials. Realistically, the largest pipe diameter you could probably find for a coil is 12" (although that will set you back a few hundred dollars), which could be be used to make a 6-foot secondary coil.
My father recently passed away and while going through his workshop, I ran across what looks like a Tesla coil he built while teaching his VO-Tech electronics class. Mom says it quit working a few years after he built it and he never got around to making the repairs. I would like to revive his Tesla coil project and get it working again but I'm not sure where to start. Any advice?
Assuming it's a spark gap Tesla coil like the ones in this video, it should have the same circuit layout and all of the same basic parts: two coils (one large coil made with thin magnet wire and one small one made with thicker wire or pipe), a capacitor bank, a power supply (usually some kind of heavy, iron-core transformer that produces the high voltage), and the spark gap. Check all the parts and see if anything is broken. As long as the transformer produces high voltage, the spark gap fires, the capacitors are not shorted, and the coils are in tune (they likely are if your father had it working before), then it should work.
My best advice is to learn as much about them as possible (and be safe, of course) and don't give up. I put a lot of links in this video's description that should be quite useful. Hope that helps, feel free to reach out again if you have trouble!
@@LabCoatz_Science I have not plugged it in yet but there is a tall coil made of insulated copper wire very similar to yours and a primary coil much smaller near the bottom of the secondary coil. There is a iron core transformer and what looks like an automotive coil connected in the circuit. I'm wondering if the coil fills the role of a capacitor. There is not a top load on the secondary coil like yours but there is a large heavy gage wire sticking out the top. There is another long heavy gage wire coming from the base up to the top of the secondary coil...I assume that a spark jumps between the two heavy wires when turned on but I don't know for sure. I have not traced the longer of the two heavy gage wires to know what it attaches to at the bottom. I would like to send you some photos...maybe to an email address? I really learned a lot from your video and I appreciate the way you make electricity understandable.
@@dalefonville2482 Sure, feel free to email me at zlabcoatz@gmail.com! The wire at the bottom of the secondary coil (the larger coil) should just connect to ground. If it's not connected to ground, the output tends to be much weaker, from my experience. And that "automotive coil" could very well be the capacitor (especially if it has markings on it like uF or nF, which symbolize microfarads and nanofarads, the units of capacitance). Send me a bunch of photos and I'll do my best to analyze them!
@@LabCoatz_Science Sounds good. I'm at work right now but I'll take some photos this evening and send them your way tomorrow. Thanks again for taking time to help me out.
@@dalefonville2482 Absolutely, just doing what I would've liked other people to do when I was getting into Tesla coils!
I am thinking about building a SGTC with a small 5kv 5ma neon sign transformer, an older non GFI transformer. I am having trouble choosing a capacitor,should I go withan older 6KVDC cap, or wire up some dublier caps? I don't like MOT'S because I want kinda toy type TC, that won't kill me should something go wrong. I was going to go with two brass balls with an adjustable, Nylon bolt to adjust gap. I will have to use the program to work out the amount of wire for my primary and secondary. I am thinking this coil might output 150,000- 200,000 KV if properly adjusted and tuned
excellent video, but i am a bit puzzeld with your rotary spark gap device....hmmmm how does it work ? and why two simple screw with a gap is not good enough ?
I have a simple question. Do both coils have to be wind in the same direction?
Nah, at least not in a spark gap coil like this one! It only matters in some solid-state coil, so feel free to wind your coil however you want!
@@LabCoatz_Science Thank you!!!
This video has been an amazing help but I was wondering what I would have to do so that I could play music through it. I know that it plays music by increasing and decreasing the frequency at which it emits the sparks but I'm not sure how.
Thanks for the question! It would be extremely hard to play music through a spark gap Tesla coil (in fact, nobody has even done it yet). The so-called "musical Tesla coils" are all solid state (SSTC's or DRSSTC's). Essentially, a Tesla coil plays music by altering the BPS, which in turn changes the sound the arc makes. Spark gap coils would be hard-pressed to do this, since the BPS is determined by the speed of a rotary gap's motor. However, with a solid state coil, the coil's driving currents are switched on and off by transistors, so making music is much easier. Hope that's helpful! If you have any other questions, feel free to ask!
Thank you so much, this has been a great help
Cool vid, thank you. What would happen/what would you feel if you were to walk into the discharging “lightning”? 🍻
With small coils, nearly nothing (except maybe some scorching of the skin, if you touch the arcs directly). With medium coils, like this one, you'd feel your muscles contract, and if the output is high enough, you may experience issues... even death, with larger units. My general rule of thumb: don't touch sparks larger than 2 feet (1 foot if you wanna be safe, and never with a pacemaker).
@@LabCoatz_Science Thank you very much!
I am very pleased you are in the coiler community! Very nice video, I have always loved Tesla Coils (including SGTCs, VTTCs, ISSTCs, DRSSTCs Audio Modulated DRSSTCs, Slayer Exciter and also the Ballasted Slayer Exciter ones). Very nice tutorial, be wary about the secondary windings in your MOTs however, they are picky about high frequency kickback. However you have designed the Spark Gap in parallel with the secondary (by far the best choice because the gap shunts the high frequency kickback through itself). Also I'm surprised to see you use MOTs that are not Ballasted. How long does it take for them to get too hot?
Thanks! I've honestly never run the coil for over fifteen second bursts (not really sure why), and the MOT's barely get warm after a few of these runs. I was worried about using unballasted MOTs too (since they draw so much current), but somehow, the coil hasn't tripped the breaker yet, and nothing has failed in the years that I've had it. Not that surprising, actually, since I rarely run the big coil. The spark gap has been super hard to maintain, and I'm still trying to set up one that works reliably, lol! The original one worked fine for a few runs, but these large coils chew through steel electrodes like candy, so it was eventually worn down too much to fire.
@@LabCoatz_Science Same as you man, I'm trying to figure out a vacuum quenched spark gap same as those Epcos spark gap type. Have a look at my little video "Amazing little desktop spark gap tesla coil". There are several videos. Look at the one where you'll find I've quenched my spark gap in a small plastic bottle. It was silent & gave me great output. Thanks for your videos. They are all great. Keep it up Norman.
This is AWESOME ⚡
Hello, I read at teslacoildesign where metallized or metal film capacitors should not be used. You are using self-healing capacitors. Are they metal film?
Death magnetic album with a tesla coil video?
Shut up and take my money 💰
Rock on man! 🤘
I gotta know .. how did you wire 3 mots in series wouldn't that mean the third one had the total of all 3 going through it did you sink them in oil did you have 2 on opposite phases and the third was for current limiting.lol Id appreciate answers to as much of this as you can lol inquiring minds and all
very very helpful and enjoyable to watch. Thanks!
Great man✌️✌️
But pls share a diagram to connect all the parts 🙄
I did, it's a basic spark gap Tesla coil schematic: spark gap in parallel with the power supply, capacitor bank and primary coil in series after spark gap, and a secondary coil with one end connected to ground.
@@LabCoatz_Science overall nice work.❤️
Keep it up ✌️
is there a place where i can buy a prewound secondary coil? thanks
Maybe on Ebay. I personally wind my own coils by hand, and surprisingly, it doesn't actually take that long!
How did you know the value of capacitance sir? Are you familiar with Mr Don Smith's Resonance coil system sir? I would love to reproduce his work and it involves resonance and tuning which requires the type of components you have just demonstrated ( with great understanding I might add ) but I am at a loss to go about figuring the necessary values of components. Thank you sir for any advice.
One of the best tutorial for making tesla coil. It helped me to clear most of my doubts about tesla coil construction. I still have a doubt . I am gonna use a flyback transformer for powering the input coil. As a flyback generates high voltage sawtooth signals, do I really need to connect it via a spark gap and capacitor bank ??? As the saw tooth signal is itself an intermittent ramp, can i connect it directly to the primary coil ?
I can't seem to find anybody talking about the current for the capacitors. Do you have information? Thanks!
really appreciated, brother your did the best
Do you think it’s possible to make a small but powerful Tesla coil? (Like a handheld one that makes huge arcs?)
Check out QCW Tesla coils, they're basically what you're talking about!
Thank you very much!
great video man! currently building one myself too, just a quick question, is a 8kV 30mA 25000Hz power supply a good idea to power one? it is a neon sign transformer and i put it in to one of those tesla coil calculators and i think it would work, but since you said something about how high frequency might not work im questioning my transformer choice. any thoughts?
Normally, high frequency power supplies are a bad idea for Tesla coil use, but they could theoretically be used if the output is rectified by high voltage diodes. Not sure how one of those new SMPS neon transformers would handle it though, it might just shut down from some internal protection circuit. Your best (cheap) option for a Tesla coil power supply is probably one of those ZVS/flyback combos you can find on eBay, Amazon, etc for under $50. I've seen people get arcs over a foot long with one of those (although they do require a 20-30VDC power supply, which'd cost another $20 or so). I actually wrote about transformer selection on my Tesla coil website here: diytesla.wixsite.com/coil/transformers-controls. My personal favorite power source is the microwave transformer, since they are cheap, robust, and EXTREMELY powerful (stringing three of four in series will get you power equivalent to a powerline transformer). Hope that helps!
@@LabCoatz_Science alright, great! Thanks for the help, im gonna start searching.
can you put a link to the caps you used?
Please can you show us how to build a Tesla Voilet Ray wand. It seems nobody attempted to do this.
Can a voltage stepup regulator work ?
Excellent video, man. So cool.
Glad you enjoyed it! Hopefully I'll be able to make a few more videos to impress people like you!
very informative
Thanks! I was really hoping other people would find this helpful, and it looks like the video is finally getting out there. I was kinda worried people would see it as just another low-quality RUclips vid and be put off by the somewhat poor audio balance (in my opinion) or music choice (Metallica isn't for everyone). I'm still pretty new to YouTubing, so I'm still trying to find out what works best. Comments like yours truly help me gauge how people feel about my content, so thanks for commenting!
Hi Zack, I’ve followed your circuit and have successfully built my first ever tesla coil. Heartfelt thanks and appreciation for your efforts.
Just for the sake of safety, can you suggest, by your experience, which are the major components to fail in this circuit apart from Mosfet and its driver in case of a flash in pcb?
In the solid-state circuits, the most likely things to fail after the MOSFETs/IGBTs are the TVS diodes across the transistor drain and source (if they are present), then the bridge rectifier, and finally, any of the small ICs (mainly the UCC driver). I've never killed a 74HC14, 7812, 7805, or any non-logic component, but I have accidentally killed a few 555 timers because of misconnections, and a UCC27425 once or twice by pushing the duty cycle too high on the interrupter.
Thanks for the info. I’m checking the board with a scope and the GDT is buzzing as expected. Output from MOSFET is less than half of input (supplying 30VDC for testing). The output from the antenna does not vary at all (200mV square wave, unreliable frequency). I’m struggling to figure out the solution.
Finally, it’s done. It’s important to check the soldering in pads after a flash. Sometimes they do get damaged. Resoldering suspected areas fixed this.
1600VDC, 1uF Arcotronics MKP R76 capacitor is okay too for a 3 MOT coil?
They're labelled as polypropylene film capacitors, so I'd have to say yes. The datasheet also mentions that they are double-metallized, which doesn't hurt either. Overall, I think a bank of these MKP caps would hold up nicely in a Tesla coil!
@@LabCoatz_Science Thank Your very much Sir, and the fast reply! One more question, if its not a problem. If I have 3 MOT, the peak voltage will be 9kV near, so I make 20kV voltage rating MMC it will handle well (?) (My plan is to put 15 R76 cap in series so I will get 24kV, 66nF)
@@mrdsandras No problem! 20kV should be plenty, in fact, the 3 MOT coil I built in my video uses a 66nF MMC bank rated at only 18kV, and it is still fully operational after all this time. I'm happy to answer almost any question you or anyone else may have. Knowledge is what make the world go round! Hope to see some video of your coil sir, I'm sure it will be most impressive.
LabCoatz Thank You very much! You are so kind, Im going to subscribe your channel, keep doing, awesome content! So Im going to buy this type of capacitors, and If it finished, somehow I show you!
@@LabCoatz_Science Thank you for such a great video, explaining everything really good. I'm a little bit curious though regardning the voltage for the capacitors.
In your example you use 15 1200 volt capacitors, mentioning that the voltage of the complete MMC should be 3 times higher than the output from the transformer. At some point in the video you can see one capacitor that says 1200 VDC, shouldn't the value be calculated for AC? When I'm looking for capacitors at different places, it often ends up that many of them has about 3 times lower AC than DC. I'm thinking if this might be the reason why you need such a higher voltage compared to the MOT's output. What's your thought?
I Also wanted to ask if you could explain a little bit more, maybe make an example of calculating the maximum useable capacitance? I've been using JAVA TC, TeslaMap, and some other calculators to figure things up, but I do not seem to get the numbers right. Thank's in advance.
Thanks for the R&D!
Please share me circuit of Tesla coil
It's just a generic spark gap Tesla coil. I put the schematic in the video at timestamp 7:16, and all of the main details (like what components I used) can be found after timestamp 9:08. Here is another schematic I found in a simple google search:
www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=%2FztbgJal&id=E574FC5EE93360A65C69E1BB0BF7FD2A20670FD8&thid=OIP._ztbgJalzxSp57YnA9hdKQHaEx&mediaurl=https%3A%2F%2Fth.bing.com%2Fth%2Fid%2FRff3b5b8096a5cf14a9e7b62703d85d29%3Frik%3D2A9nICr99wu74Q%26riu%3Dhttp%253a%252f%252fupload.wikimedia.org%252fwikipedia%252fcommons%252fthumb%252f2%252f24%252fTesla_coil_4.svg%252f640px-Tesla_coil_4.svg.png%26ehk%3D4YG9Gl4HLF%252fpUy%252fKI3z5GrfJlz9Y8Pyn7BMpCfPhSSw%253d%26risl%3D%26pid%3DImgRaw&exph=412&expw=640&q=tesla+coil+diagram&simid=608046183006997203&ck=826CD76C9A708DB950B5154B4392A06A&selectedindex=1&form=IRPRST&ajaxhist=0&pivotparams=insightsToken%3Dccid_2F%252FQGWz%252F*cp_3434071514D214D43BB3C0CF414A078E*mid_2373A422E93CFDB772F3A28D2AAA13BA6D19AC00*simid_608042313309291749*thid_OIP.2F!_QGWz!_svqnzhFJPKrnwwHaEw&vt=0&sim=11&iss=VSI&ajaxhist=0
Good practical information. Thank you.
Excellent work!!
I am fascinated with this design and love to build one TC myself. Could you help me with a little more detailed schema , construction design and the reference of components and where to buy?
How did you wire up the 3 microwave transformers (not that they are in series i mean how did you connect them to the power outlet)
Amazing video btw!!!
Thanks, I just soldered wires to the power terminals!
@@LabCoatz_Science oh so you just plugged them directly into the outlet?
Thanks!
Enjoyed the video
Nice build
so is it safe to touch ? or it will kill ? amazing super cool
Depends on the coil size. A coil this size could be harmful if touched, while a smaller coil is just fine.
This is what i needed
Glad to hear it! I'm hoping to make another addition to my ultimate Tesla coil series, so be sure to subscribe for that!
Put you the primary coil of the Mots parelell?
Indeed I did, sir!
@@LabCoatz_Science OK thanks, do you need a throttle?
@@hdjfvdj Not necessarily
Doesn't the fuse blow then?
Can I have the switching Diagramm for the MOT Stack?
Is it possible to scale this down?
So cool! That will help a lot!
Can you do a video about safety? As in capacitor discharge on tesla coils.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH