Designing and Building a Tesla Coil: Tips and Experiences

[Benzoate]

any of you every attempt to design and build a tesla coil. I would love to build one . Can any of you share your experiences when you first begin to construct the Tesla coil and how long did the project take? What materials do I need. Do you have to be an electrician to build a tesla coil

 

[ice109]

i attempted to build one and failed. in theory they're very simple things. in practicality though you need need an oscilloscope or a slick little device that you have to build yourself to tune it right.

 

[waht]

I built a tesla coil when I was still in high school. I experimented with high voltage a lot then. I assembled numerous high voltage power supplies mostly from TV's flyback transformer, I've built spark gaps, and high voltage capacitors. So I already had experience with high voltage before attempting the TC. And of course I read everything I could regarding safety.

The TC I build was on a 1 1/2" PVC pipe, with a doorknob acting as the load capacitor. The power source was the TV flyback transformer. Overall the thing produced about 1 to 1 1/2 foot arcs. It was very spectacular, and cool to show off to your friends. The neatest part about it all was that you could touch the arcs without being shocked (well there was mild stinging sensation). It took many months of working on and off to actually put it together. My original goal was just to experiment with high voltage, not just build TC.

There are parts of the TC that can be lethal and result in your paralysis or death. If you really don't know what you are doing, I'd recommend don't do it until you know what you are doing.

 

[Benzoate]

Yeah, I saw the pictures of the arcs online and its just an amazing sight to see. How long did it take you to build a TC what? Did you buy any manuals on how to build a Tesla Coil? Did you look at models of how other people consturcted a Tesla Coil. How much did all the materials you bought for the TEsla coil cost? Before building a TC, should I consider investing in a TC before building one or are all the material cheap and affordable , that their isn't a need for investing in a TC ?

 

[waht]

Yeah, I saw the pictures of the arcs online and its just an amazing sight to see. How long did it take you to build a TC what? Did you buy any manuals on how to build a Tesla Coil? Did you look at models of how other people consturcted a Tesla Coil. How much did all the materials you bought for the TEsla coil cost? Before building a TC, should I consider investing in a TC before building one or are all the material cheap and affordable , that their isn't a need for investing in a TC ?

I did not buy any manuals. All my information came from library books and internet. I did look at a lot of different models, they all work the same.

Material wise, I've salvaged free flyback transformers from old TV sets. Flyback transformers are less powerful than neon sign transformer, but still work. Most designs on the internet use neon sign transformer.

As for the rest parts, you need a magnet wire, PVC pipe, beer bottles for the capacitor, and a bit of ingenuity to put it all together. My cost was less than $15 bucks.

If you want to buy your own TC, how much fun would that be?

There is hundreds of different websites with TC made by people. Google, and print stuff out. I hope what I told you is for educational purposes. You can really injure yourself if you don't know what you are doing.

a lot of TC designers spend a lot of time calculating everything out. I've found that without any calculations, just ball park, brute force construction will still give pretty spectacular results.

 

[ice109]

I did not buy any manuals. All my information came from library books and internet. I did look at a lot of different models, they all work the same.

Material wise, I've salvaged free flyback transformers from old TV sets. Flyback transformers are less powerful than neon sign transformer, but still work. Most designs on the internet use neon sign transformer.

As for the rest parts, you need a magnet wire, PVC pipe, beer bottles for the capacitor, and a bit of ingenuity to put it all together. My cost was less than $15 bucks.

If you want to buy your own TC, how much fun would that be?

There is hundreds of different websites with TC made by people. Google, and print stuff out. I hope what I told you is for educational purposes. You can really injure yourself if you don't know what you are doing.

a lot of TC designers spend a lot of time calculating everything out. I've found that without any calculations, just ball park, brute force construction will still give pretty spectacular results.

totally disagree. i did rough calculations and still got nothing. maybe I'm just unlucky but doing something half assed is dumb anyway

 

[Benzoate]

I did not buy any manuals. All my information came from library books and internet. I did look at a lot of different models, they all work the same.

Material wise, I've salvaged free flyback transformers from old TV sets. Flyback transformers are less powerful than neon sign transformer, but still work. Most designs on the internet use neon sign transformer.

As for the rest parts, you need a magnet wire, PVC pipe, beer bottles for the capacitor, and a bit of ingenuity to put it all together. My cost was less than $15 bucks.

If you want to buy your own TC, how much fun would that be?

There is hundreds of different websites with TC made by people. Google, and print stuff out. I hope what I told you is for educational purposes. You can really injure yourself if you don't know what you are doing.

a lot of TC designers spend a lot of time calculating everything out. I've found that without any calculations, just ball park, brute force construction will still give pretty spectacular results.

How much did it all cost you to construct a tesla coil and where and what manuals/books did you get on the tesla coil? I don't want to buy a Tesla Coil that's already built . I just want to know how much it will cost me to acquire the materials needed to build a Tesla coil

 

[tareef]

Hi,
Am Tareef, me and my friends were interested in building a Tesla Coil, and so we did one, but actually after we finished assembling and fixing the parts together we noticed that while we were testing it, the sparks only came out from the spark gap, and nothing came out from the toroid, we spent hours trying to know why that happened but we reached to nothing
so for that am asking you if you can help us by giving us an advise.
by the way i will provide you with some videos, so it can be easier for you to know what's happeneing.

The First Video Shows All The Wiring We Made
(( ))

The Second Video Shows Whats Happening With Us
(( ))


note: you will notice that in the wiring video that the is a copper coil on the ground, actually we put id there and we connected it with a wire for grounding, and that wire is connected to a steel pipes used for the fire fighting in our building.
hope the information which i gave to you is enough.

Waiting Your Advice,, Thanks a lot
Tareef

 

[spaceball3000]

I recommend asking people who talk about Tesla Coils all the time, and have good experience at it.
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