Micro Tesla Coil, five dollars 9/6/09 12:09 AM

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TESLA COIL BUILDERS GOOD STUFF NEW STUFF SEARCH Search

WARNING: CAUSES BURNS! NOT FOR CHILDREN!

While these devices cannot cause electrocution, they can easily burn holes in your skin
LCD Backlight because they can supply several watts into a continuous electric arc. The danger is
Inverter similar to that with a candle or a match. In other words, if you "zap" yourself on the
Looking for LCD high-voltage electrode, you'll end up with a tiny black-charred hole in your finger, a
Monitor Inverter? We
cloud of burning-hair scent, and a small painful burn.
carry a Variety of
Inverters
www.lcdparts.net

GPU Computing for

HPC
$5 MICRO TESLA COIL
Deploy Fastest Intel 5,000V, 50KHz
Xeon and GPU Tesla
based Clusters. Learn From Electronic Goldmine, others
More.
www.Appro.com

Considering Several surplus electronics companies sell very small hi-volt power supplies called "fluorescent lamp
GoldMine CRM? inverters." In fact, these devices are solid-state CW Tesla Coils: they produce several thousand volts
Compare Goldmine
CRM w/ 40 Other Top
at high frequency.
CRM Vendors. Get
Free Report. The device sold by Electronic Goldmine is particularly interesting because of it's low cost: $5
Business-Software.com/CRMComparison
normally, less during sales. The low cost means that anyone can afford to buy one of these to play
Echo EDM
with.
EDM Machining
Specialist Set-Up For
Fast Turnaround
www.echoedm.com

Solenoid Coils
Solenoid coils wound
to customers
specifications.
www.indcoils.com

Elect. Goldmine, 30KHz 1KV $4.95

Coolerguys (inverter w/fluroscent tubes, $5.95)
All Electronics INV-12 $6.80
Elect. Goldmine G9614 $1.89 (overheats)
Emco High Voltage
Corp. Excess Solutions, TDK 4watt inverter $5.00
Miniature, High Alltronics FLPS $5.99
Performance, High
Voltage Power
Marlin P. Jones 14840LA (w/fluor. tube) $7.95
Supplies in Stock. CCFL inverters, TDK App Note (PDF)
www.emcohighvoltage.com
Elec. Goldmine G12866 $1.19 (currently sold out)
LCD Backlight All Electronics INV-7 $2.50 (currently sold out)
Inverter
Looking for LCD All Electronics INV-9 $8.95 (currently sold out)
Monitor Inverter? We
carry a Variety of I've messed around with the one from Electronic Goldmine. Although it's designed for 5VDC input
Inverters
www.lcdparts.net (at up to 200mA or so,) actually it works down to around 0.5V. Most of them can tolerate a 9V
GPU Clusters for battery just fine, and a few can make it all the way to +15V before running into problems. To
HPC smoothly alter the high voltage output, just change the voltage of the DC input.
Deploy Fastest Intel
Xeon and GPU Tesla
based Clusters. Fixing the arcing problem
Request Quote
www.Appro.com
If you crank the input higher than 5Vdc, the high voltage coil will become warm. If you go much
Considering
GoldMine CRM? above 8V, an internal arc will develop within the coil and burn it out. However, this problem can be
Compare Goldmine cured. Inside the xformer, the ground wire for the secondary coil runs across that coil. Perhaps this is
CRM w/ 40 Other Top
CRM Vendors. Get
an intentionally bad design to keep the HV below a certain voltage (where any accidental overload
Free Report. will trigger an arc and shut down the output.) To fix it, carefully remove the white tape from the
Business-Software.com/CRMComparison
bottom of the xformer. Go slowly, since the hair-thin ground wire runs across this tape. With the

http://amasci.com/tesla/microtc.html Page 1 of 2
Micro Tesla Coil, five dollars 9/6/09 12:09 AM

ground wire exposed, slather it with RTV silicone caulk or with epoxy. Or perhaps remove that wire
Solenoid Coils
Solenoid coils wound so it no longer extends across the coil, then strip the varnish from the end of the wire and solder it to
to customers a different ground location. Put a bit of silicone goo on the thin wire to keep it from breaking by
specifications.
www.indcoils.com accident.

WARNING: CAUSES BURNS! NOT FOR CHILDREN!

While these devices cannot cause electrocution, they can easily burn holes in your skin
because they can supply several watts into a continuous electric arc. The danger is similar
to that with a candle or a match. In other words, if you "zap" yourself on the high-voltage
electrode, you'll end up with a tiny black-charred hole in your finger, a cloud of burning-
hair scent, and a small painful burn. See: "electrocautery"

USES
Carefully use the 1/8" arc from the HV terminal to cut things. You can slice through thin solder or
through #30 wire. Perform "Electric Discharge Machining" on various kinds of fruit or possibly meat.

Sandwich a piece of foil (or PCB) between two sheets of plastic insulation. Connect the foil to the HV
terminal, then power it up. Any neon or fluroescent tubes placed on the insulated plate will light up.

Hook the HV terminal to one end of a fluorescent tube. Glue a thin strip of metal foil along the length
of the fluorescent tube, and attach the foil to the ground terminal. Now vary the +5V power supply. A
glowing "plasma finger" advances and retreats within the tube. Looks like a Light Sabre from Star
Wars. (A hundred of these can be computer-driven as a large electronic sculpture.

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OLD LINKS GONE BAD? Try http://archive.org, "The Wayback Machine" It offers billions of old
websites and even some of the graphics. But it's not searchable. You have to know the URL of the old
site.

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