Building a small tesla coil for high school project

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Ramon van der Hilst by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <enqrypzion-at-yahoo-dot-com>


hey all! 

In March '03 I'll be having an educational exchange project with my school. Me
and a friend of mine have the plan to make our own Tesla coil, since our
presentation will be about lightning and electric discharges. The fact is
though that neither of us knows much about high voltage electronics (we do have
basic knowledge on normal electronics). I have read quite a lot about TCs on
the internet by now and we are both able to explain to newbs how a TC works,
yet we don't knwo exactly where to start and what to buy. Before you all start
saying we shouldn't do it at all as it's really dangerous, let me assure you
that we will receive help from our physics teachers and their assistents.

That should cover our purposes pretty much. Main goal will be that it's
portable, that we can take it with us on an air plane (that'll be for the
weight, it can operate on the electricity net np, but we have to carry it
around). Also we are aiming at a visual spark of 10 cm at least.

I'm thinking about using the 1200VDC .33 uF caps (as they have most farads of
the 1200V caps) that are at the following site:
<http://www.speakerland-dot-com/AUDYN_CAP_MKP_PLUS.htm>http://www.speakerland.c
om/AUDYN_CAP_MKP_PLUS.htm

the site is in Dutch, but you'll understand the table anyway. I'm not sure how
many we will need, that is one thing I would like to know.

Secondly I would like to know what kind of transformer I need. I see many
smaller TCs are operated with neon tube transformers, I think we could call
around if we can find one somewhere. Or is it possible to use a smaller one
(that we might already have at school)?

I think the primary and secondary windings won't be a problem as long as we
make them the right size. That we will calculate with some of the programs
available on the internet and all material will be available at school already.

I hope you can help us! 

Ramon van der Hilst (NL)