Recent content by MacDaddio

Okay I appreciate the explanation. This helped me grasp the concept of the tank circuit in this design. I will revive this thread if and when I get stuck. Farewell!

So you are saying that the purpose of the tank circuit is to increase the operating frequency of the secondary coil? Why do Tesla coils need to be run at high frequencies? And what frequencies are you talking about: kHz?

I understand how the tank circuit works, I just don't understand its purpose entirely. In theory, you could omit the tank circuit and spark gap and just have one monstrous transformer right? I have attached an image of what I'm talking about; please, no compliments on the art skill.

Hello everyone, I am interested in building a Tesla coil for fun and education. I am an EE student in my junior year of college, so I have most of the basics down, but I'd like to learn a little more so that I do not set my house on fire. I've been going through the principals of Tesla coils...

Okay will do sir! Okay so let's say that I connect the ipod directly to the speaker with no amp. If the max voltage is 1v and the speaker impedance is 8 ohms then the current through the speaker is 1v=8 ohms which is 125 mA right? So power is 1*.125 = 125mW And with the amp the output is 4 v...

Okay when you talk about bypassing the battery with the capacitor do you mean to put the capacitor in parallel with Re? Thats what I've seen people do, or do you mean put the capacitor between Vcc and the battery + side?

Okay so I went to buy one at radioshack and apparently they don't have much of a selection. And as usual don't know anything about what they are selling lol. I got the only one that wasn't enormous but I'm not sure what the specs on it are. However looking online it appears that its a 1000 ohm...

Okay and for C = 1uF you mean the input coupling C right? Well my speaker is an old stereo speaker. However I'm doing this for a project, not necessarily to get better speakers. So although buying a set of powered speakers would be cool I wouldn't get a good grade XD. However this is very...

Sorry I forgot to attach the schematic!

Okay sweet thanks CWatters. I just built the amp again. I drew the schematic for it on paint, sorry for the horrible art skills... So it ACTUALLY works! However it isn't as loud as just directly connecting the speaker to the iPod. I mean just the fact that works is amazing but it isn't...

Thank you so much CWatters! That actually helped a TON! Okay I get all of it until the Rc part. What is Vsat? Why is it .3v? Also is it always assumed that Vc is about half of the voltage drop from Vcc to Ve?

Well that's the thing, my biggest problem is finding the base voltage right now. I mean I'm looking at load lines, and I'm understanding that Vce = .5Vcc, but I can't solve these equations because I have to many variables. how do I solve for the base voltage? Or do I just pick something? I've...

Hey rude man, so at quiescent isn't Ic = (Vcc)/(R1+R2)? Then Ic = .726mA for Vcc =9v or are you saying I should use a 12v value for Vcc to get that Ic value of about 1mA? I was reading what Basic_Physics posted and it was very helpful, however I'm having difficulty finding the midpoint...

Okay guys so I have been reading a lot on this stuff and am starting to understand it a lot better, however it is still really confusing. So I decided to simplify my amp for now(See picture) but I'm unsure of what values I should choose for Ic and Rc... I also am not sure how much voltage should...

Thanks for the welcome Berkeman! I will definitely label this with the voltages. I'm going to work soon so I will update my schematic after work. One thing, what do you mean by measure the voltage with respect to the - side of the battery? Like have the - wire of the multimeter on the - side of...