Tabletop Tesla coil

Tabletop Tesla coil

tabletopteslacoilinstructables.jpg

Mr. Apol made a tabletop Tesla coil:

After studying and tinkering with different components for a year, I finally assembled my first Tesla coil. I chose a bipolar design inspired by one in THE BOY ELECTRICIAN by Alfred P. Morgan (first published 1913, reprinted by Lindsay Publications and available at http://www.lindsaybks.com/.) Unlike the more common upright coils, the bipolar coil has a horizontal secondary and primary, and the ends of the secondary coil terminate in vertical electrodes. As I wanted to build a small tabletop model, this appealed to me because the coil would not need an external ground connection. I also decided to build the coil in modular fashion, with easily separated spark gap assembly, tank capacitors, and power supply. This way I could experiment with different components and see what changing these parts did to the overall performance of the coil.

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Becky Stern is a Content Creator at Autodesk/Instructables, and part time faculty at New York’s School of Visual Arts Products of Design grad program. Making and sharing are her two biggest passions, and she's created hundreds of free online DIY tutorials and videos, mostly about technology and its intersection with crafts. Find her @bekathwia on YouTube/Twitter/Instagram.

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