To see a Tesla coil sending out showers of arcs in all directions at close hand is an unforgettable experience. Malcolm Watts describes the attributes and design of one such coil. inventing devices that ‘would evolu tionise the use of electricity Possibly his pest invention was the ac clot motor, enabling the use ofan te dlstbution sysiem EB for powerng industrial TA machine ood lighing and heating systems Of alls tventions the Tesla coil is the [a tos fascinating. Apart ffom the spectacular discharges — used for lighting effets in Hollywood the coll isa very compact high-volage generator. The allabliyof cheap ebt rectifier, such as the 3BY700 fom Philips series makes output r= tification of low fo medium power devices @ real possibilty. J ist over a century ago, Nikola Tesla was rr efully the coil described here is POC ae ence eats build or use it unle Pore eue ney and even then, follow afety notes on page 195 Air-cored windings The Tesla coil is simply a transformer with primary and secondary windings but that is ‘where the similarities with a ‘normal’ iron- cored transformer end. The windings ate aircored and ‘comparatively losely ‘coupled. This implies a large amount of ‘magnetic fx leakage and because of this the ‘coil’ behaves more like current source than a voltage source. In fact, it has a finite internal impedance determined by phys- ical parameters that will enable it to deliver maximum power to a load, in this case the spark, only when the load matches this impedance, you fully ety Energy not dissipated in sparks will be dis- sipated as electromagnetic radiation and heat- ing of the primary components. Badly tuned and incorrectly coupled tesla coils have given the devices a notorious reputation as wideband emitters of emi. The design procedure pre- sented here should minimise this problem. Feeding large amounts of power into the arrangement, shown in Fig. 1, generates volt- age gradients in the kilovolts-per-turn range across the secondary coil ~ hence the single- layer winding. Peak voltage at the top of the secondary col is obtained just prior to sparks breaking out. As soon as sparks appear, a load is effectively placed across the secondary, causing the output voltage to drop as output ‘current rises Spark behaviour is govemed by convection and loading. In a pulse-driven coil, bursts of sparks are produced at twice the mains fre-quency and feed the are so formed which rises by convection. When the arc, behaving a8 a resistor formed from hot ionised gases, ‘becomes stretched, current and ionisation are reduced to the point where it extinguishes and anew one forms, It follows that power con- sumption and loading of the system is far from constant and harmonic output will depend on the degree of variation. Quantifying the peak output voltage is not a simple matter of turns ratio as with a standard transformer. Spark length, unlike a de or low frequency situation, is not an accurate indica- tor of voltage since repetitive ionisation of the discharge channel causes successive sparks to reach progressively further until primary and secondary currents are at maximum values. Spark length is probably a more accurate indi- calor of system power throughput. For exam ple, an arc over 150mm long can be generated by a low voltage high current arc welder. Experiments show that lengths of 300mm per joule of energy stored in the primary capacitor ‘ean be reached in a well built device. How the Tesla coil works The system shown in Fig. 1 may be recognis- able to those of you familiar with spark-gap transmission systems. The major difference is the lack of an aerial which is, in effect, entire- ly wound on the secondary, The top of the secondary coil connects to a metal terminal possessing some capacitance, This enhances series-resonant behaviour. See references 145, pages 45-50, for an excellent description ofthis. The ratio of inductance to capacitance in the secondary system also determines the voltage to current ratio of the output. Primary and secondary coils are initially ver-coupled in order to throughput a decent amount of power. In order for the system to approach critical coupling with minimum bandwidth and maximum power transfer it is important that the coil is driven hard enough to produce heavy sparking. Loading of the secondary causes the Q of the entire system to drop sharply which causes primary-secondary coupling to tend to the critical value2?-*6 This action also minimises radiation since power is being expended in sparks ‘The primary circuit couples pulses of power to the low impedance end of the secondary coil and must resonate at the same frequency as the secondary for maximum power transfi While the secondary is tuned by its self-capac- itance and terminal capacitance, the primary coil is tuned by the primary capacitor which also serves as an energy store, The primary capacitor is charged by the step-up transformer on every half-cycle of the mains. When its voltage causes the spark gap to fire, this energy is dumped into the primary coil and hence into a rapidly changing mag- netic field that also ‘cuts’ the secondary coil ‘The speed with which the field builds up is determined by capacitor voltage and the value of inductance, including mutual secondary inductance, that the capacitor is discharged into, The faster this rate-of-change, the greater rie ee breaker aT T switch — |} i ero 1 Fig. 1. Schematic of the Tesla coll generator showing primary and secondary tuned circuits, Choke the induced emf in the secondaty. As an example of the very high power levels involved, a capacitor dumping one joule of ‘energy in ten microseconds produces a peak power of 100kW. The net effect is to transfer energy from a relatively large primary capac- itor to a very small secondary capacitance, Its essential that the resonant frequency of the primary circuit matches that of the sec- ondary circuit as closely as possible. The pri- ‘mary capacitor, which virtually dictates the quality of the system, should have a minimum intemal inductance and resistance, ie, low est for good coil performance. Old oil-filled ‘capacitors such as those used for smoothing in transmitters work, but their current delivery capability is hampered by unsuitable internal construction, namely the thin lead wires. Theit major virtue isthe selfshealing of the dielectric after breakdown, Suitable initial primary-secondary coupling is required for best results. Finally, the pri- mary chokes, whose job itis to disconnect the step-up transformer from the primary circuit when the spark gap fires, should have an impedance considerably higher than the impedance of Lp at the resonant frequency. ‘They isolate spark-gap transients from the Terminal Capacitor iS \ Sel. Primary + | capacitance coll Tesla secondaryCoax rom signal generator ins and should be ‘lossy’ at high frequen- ies to dissipate unwanted rf as heat. Tesla coil design ‘The type of coil detailed in this article is a pulse-driven two col system, Other configu- Tations may be driven by a power oscillator running atthe resonant frequency. You ean seen here with custom-built capacitor, and Coil former containing both primary and secondary coils. Signal ead Fig, 2. Resonance of the primary capacitor and coil s found by closing the circuit and adjusting the signal generator for maximum amplitude on the oscilloscope. tend-feed a secondary coil alone from a very ow impedance oscillator for example, Other designs include additional windings. Pulse-riven coils develop by far the highest ‘outputs for a given input due to the trick of storing energy over a relatively long duration Of Sms and releasing it in a short period of 10us. The recommended starting point is to choose a secondary coil height based on required spark distance. Power feeds to short high-power coils need special protection. The philosophy taken here is that simplicity is best and will eave fewer things to go wrong. With a suitable height for the secondary selected, a former with a diameter that is somewhere between 0.2 to 0.5 times this is recommended. Secondary formers may be anything from pve pipe to dried and vamished cardboard tubes. Rigid plastic tubing yields the lowest losses next to air except pve which hha the highest dielectric losses amongst plas- tics in high frequency power situations!, Some vvamishes may also exhibit losses. ‘The self capacitance of the coil is calculated using Medhurst’s formula, Csc-HDpF, ‘where D is the coil diameter in centimetres and is @ value depending on the height t0 diameter ratio of the coil. Values of H range from 0.5 for heighvidiameter=2 to 0.81 for heightdiameter=5. This formula holds if one end of the coil is connected to ground or low ‘impedance and in close proximity to. ground- ced surface such as ferro-concrete. This is hhandy since the self capacitance is indepen- dent of the type of winding as long as itis sin- ale layer. ‘The next decision is whether to close-wind for space wind the coil. Close wound coils have the highest inductance but do not gener- ally exhibit higher Q's than spaced windings because of the proximity effect” and extra wire resistance. The biggest plus to close- ‘wound coils is that lower resonant frequency allows higher primary L/C ratios so that the Q's of the two coils can approach equality The benefit of spaced winding is that less heavy vamishing is required. For close-wound coils, glazed-enamel magnet wire must be ee Terminal capacitance for a sphere é 750 where d is the sphere diameter in mm anc ‘he sphers ik moked about 2/25 above t secondary coil. For a toroidal terminal, ‘capacitance is, 44, op SHE eRe sd dikineses of hes dy is the diameter of the tube and the terminal is mounted above the coil, All. emia mound Sines eee pees Wheeler's formula for inductance er pao ar+100 ‘where n is number of turns, r is coil radi in inches, and h i coil height in inches, ‘The recommended minimum wire diameter: ‘which is three times the skin depth at frequency f; where fis, 1 3 Hz era Lis secondary inductance in henries and is the sum of coil self-capacitance and th terminal capacitance. Since C can be calculated first, Z and f values are flexible. Primary coil Minimum height per turn should be, 007K, + Pex rat where Ve is peak capacitor voltage in th primary components to minimise connec wiring as this will add about 0.5uH per fi and contribute to power losses, mostly in fom ofem radiation. Hence it may be th nomrintgral namber of tims is required. Calculating peak output voltage B= a 2ev?