[SEDXC] Musical Tesla Coils

[Gregg W6IZT]

Totally cool.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbLshnfu0wY
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbLshnfu0wY&feature=youtu.be>
&feature=youtu.be

 

These are two gigantic solid state musical Tesla Coils. A Tesla Coil is a
special type of transformer invented by Nikola Tesla that is able to
generating extremely large voltages using a phenomenon known as electrical
resonance. Each coil in this video is capable of generating a 13 foot spark.
This equates to about 500,000 volts of electricity. 


The primary drive system for the coils consists of high power semiconductors
arranged into an H-Bridge switching configuration. During a spark event, the
coil is pulsed on for a few hundred millionths of a second. During this
short time, thousands of amps circulate within the primary tank circuit and
the energy is coupled into the secondary resonator through magnetism. 


So what appears to be a continuous burst of sparks is actually a specific
number of sparks generated per second. By modulating the number of sparks
that emit from the coil each second, different tones can be produced by the
coils.


These coils were constructed by Eric Goodchild and Steven Caton.


Eric Goodchild is currently an EE student at ASU Polytechnic. 


His personal website is:  <http://www.goodchildengineering.net/>
http://www.goodchildengineering.net/


Steven Caton is currently an EE student at UCLA


His personal website is:  <http://stevencaton.com/> http://stevencaton.com/