(ebook) - Physics - Tesla - How To Make Tesla#39;s Coil.pdfVIP

Excerpt from Popular Mechanics 1968 Electrical fantasies with a Tesla coil By HAROLD P. STRAND IT JUST SITS there spitting fire, like a fugitive from a mad scientists laboratory. The current its discharging-in a wicked, noisy 2-in. brush is of such a high frequency you cant measure it, but maybe it runs up to 40,000 volts! Feeling just a bit suicidal, you move a coin toward this geyser of fire. The greedy tentacles snatch toward it, but theres no shock. Even if you poked a finger into the brush, the current would just splash over your skin. Ever since Nikola Tesla invented a high-voltage, high frequency coil, science experimenters have been intrigued with their own variations on his coil. In Teslas time, high-frequency current was obtained with an induction coil as a primary source of power. Leyden jars served as capacitors, with a spark gap and the inductance of a second coil combining to form an oscillatory discharge of high frequency. With todays vacuum tubes and mica capacitors, we can make a much more efficient and safer coil. Tesla coil Spectacular fireworks include a ring of fire scribed by a wire pivoting on a phonograph needle attached to a terminal. A finer wire, attached directly to a coil, produces trumpet pinwheels, shown in the smaller photo. This article tells how you can create these fireworks MATERIALS LIST 1 811-A tube 1 Ceramic 4-pin socket with oval mounting flange 1 9/16 ceramic plate cap 1 2500 or 3000 ohm, 25 watt Ohmite power rheostat with knob 1 3000 ohm, 20 or 25 watt fixed resistor 1 6.3 v. 6 amp. filament transformer. Thordarson 21F11 or equivalent. 1 1000 v., 150 ma. plate transformer. With enlarged enclosure, stand and Stancor PC8414 power transformer 1200 v., 200 ma. , can be substituted, using primary and these taps only 2 S.P.S.T. bat handle toggle switches with solder lugs, 6 amp. 125 v. 1 Finger knob panel type fuse mount for 3AG fuses 1 Box 5 3AG fus