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Before I created the Voltage Obsessives, I built a series of small tesla coils, all but the last being powered by flyback transformers. These coils included a range of components that existed as part of each system at one time. All the coils were make-shift, low-tech, I-really-have-no-idea-how-to-make-a-tesla-coil-type coils. I remember the first one clearly...
The Proto-Morphic Coil. I call my first coil
ever this as it changed and grew, with its components eventually
integrating themselves into other, later coils. The secondary is
still existant, though I'd never use it for anything, and can
hardly believe that it worked in the first place. Wrapped on a
2.25" cardboard form, wound with multiple sections of 22
gauge plastic-coated wire, with each section connected to the
next through bared ends, twisted together. winding length,
~13"(this changed several times:)So, the secondary is this
multi-colored cylinder with about ten sharp projections along its
sides, and no discharge terminal, just the top turn ending with a
bared wire pointed outwards. The original primary was simply
about 4-5 turns of insulated solid-conductor 12 gauge wire
stapled to the table in a plat spral pattern.
The Post-Proto-Morphic to Pre-Alpha-NST Coils These were a series of fly-back transformer powered coils, made up of a variety of simple spark gaps, primaries, and three(later five-one was split in half)secondaries. I became creative with these things, and began to use them more like induction coils than tesla coils. The most interesting of all my experiments during this phase produced some sort of tree-shaped discharge 7" long. BUT, mind you, this was not the classic bright-purple tendril of a tc. I increased the capacitance as much as I could, and then opened out the spark gap to the point where I was getting perhaps 4 firings per second. The secondary was wound on a 3" cardboard form, with ~17" of 22gauge magnet wire and perhaps 3" of 24 gauge magnet wire at one end of that(both pulled of of the windings in the back of TV's), and a 1.25" steel ball-bearing on a plastic insulator was being used as a discharge terminal. When the coil was operated in this fashion in complete darkness(meaning the spark gap was heavily shielded), a set of pale-white, tree-shaped discharges would appear, leaping off the top surface of the ball bearing. I could draw them to my outstretched palm with absolutely no sensation... ...it really was beutiful and earie.
The Alpha-Neon Sign Transformer Coil, or the A-1 TC
This was the first tesla coil I built using a power source other
than a flyback transformer. Using a cardboard form with a
2.25" dia wound with 22gauge magnet wire (pulled of of the windings in the back of TV's) and three salt water capacitors, I set up a
coil with a 6000Vac 30ma NST I had borrowed from a friend. The
discharge terminal was a 1.25"
steel ball bearing, and it used a simple adjustable static gap,
just two bolts between two steel L-braces. Even only at 180 watts
and 3" of arc the thing roared loud enough to disturb
everyone, but "strangely" I wasn't punished for
building this one... `:)
So see What came next...
"I didn't mean to build it! I never
thought it would
actually work!" my long-standing objection to being grounded
for making
my first coil
email: electrophile@juno.com
