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SPARC-Auburn / Tesla-Coil

As a demonstration for Auburn's E-Day, we built a full size tesla coil. The intent of this project is to learn concepts about electricity and magnetism and demonstrate them to the community.
http://sparc-auburn.github.io/
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Tesla-Coil

Overview

As a demonstration for Auburn's E-Day, we are building a full size tesla coil. A tesla coil acts as a giant voltage transformer that can generate arcs of electricity in mid-air. Nicola Tesla invented and built the first tesla coils. His intentions were to create wireless energy. While tesla coils do in fact create a strong electromagnetic field, they are not ideal for most applications. The intent of this project is to learn concepts about electricity and magnetism and demonstrate them to the community.

How it Works

There are two different types of tesla coils: spark gap and solid state. Nicola Tesla built spark gap tesla coils. A spark gap tesla coil works by using a high voltage transformer that then charges a capacitor. The capacitor then discharges across a small gap of air hence the spark gap. This creates a resonating square wave of high voltage that then is conducted through a primary coil. The primary coil inducts through electromagnetism into the secondary coil. Charge builds up in the air around the toroid and creates an arc of electricity.

Our progress

The goal is to develop a tesla coil that can shoot out arcs of lengths up to 3 feet. Our goal is to create a musical tesla coil. Basically it produce arcs in the resonance and rhythm as preprogrammed music. We decided to divide the project into three sections: miniature spark gap tesla coil, large spark gap tesla coil, and large musical solid state tesla coil. We completed the miniature tesla coil and it works as designed and generates an arc length of about 2 cm. From there we have constructed a full scale tesla coil using a 7530 volt transformer. The Tesla Coil creates arcs up to 6" thus creating 400,000 volts of electricity.

Useful Links

Inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdIYwIWfYyo
Minature Tesla Coil: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUKYCRhXFgo
Small Scale Example: https://onetesla.com/
How Tesla Coils Work: http://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2014/01/29/how_tesla_coils_work_108474.html
List of Tesla Coil Formulas:http://teslacoils4christ.org/TCFormulas/TCFormulas.htm
How to make a Musical Tesla Coil: http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-Musical-Tesla-Coil-like-a-Pro/
MMC Capacitor: http://deepfriedneon.com/tesla_f_mmc.html

Project Initiation Date: 9/24/15