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Exploring the High-Voltage Tesla Coil

Grady L. Cutrer, III
April 25, 2005

AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to outline the basic theory of Tesla coil operation, discuss the use of different mathematical equations that can be used to analyze a Tesla coil, demonstrate that a functional Tesla coil can be built from materials that are either readily available or that can be improvised, provide experimental results of the research conducted, and discuss methods for improving the design of future Tesla coils. Index TermsAir core transformer, High voltage, LC circuit, Tesla coil

I. INTRODUCTION

ikola Tesla invented the Tesla Coil to study the properties of high voltage, high frequency electricity. According to [1], The Tesla coil is a combination of two circuits. Each circuit has a coil of wire, both wound together around a hollow tube. One of the coils is made of heavy wire and has just a few turns around the tube. The other circuits coil is made of finer wire wound many times around the tube. When an alternating current passes through the coil of heavy wire, it produces a magnetic field. The magnetic field induces current in the fine wire. Variations of the Tesla coil were used in early radios including the one invented by Marconi. Although the Tesla coil was extremely important to the early transmission and reception of radio signals, today it is used primarily to investigate the effects of high voltage, high frequency electricity. It is this aspect of the Tesla coil that shall be explored in this paper.

Fig. 1. The Tesla coil consists of two LC circuits; the Primary tank circuit is outlined in red [2].

II. BASIC TESLA COIL THEORY A Tesla coil is a type of transformer. It differs from traditional transformers in a few important ways. It has an air core instead of an iron core. The primary coil is mounted concentric with the secondary coil. Output voltage depends upon the resonance effects between the primary and the secondary, instead of the ratio of windings between them. The Tesla coil needs a high voltage input. This can be accomplished with a traditional iron core transformer. The input voltage for a medium sized Tesla coil should be in the range of 8-15 kV. To avoid confusing this transformer with the Tesla coil throughout the paper it shall be referred to as the NST (Neon Sign Transformer, because that was the high

voltage input that was used for this particular experiment). Whenever the terms primary and/or secondary are used, they are referring to the primary and/or secondary coils of the Tesla coil (not the NST), unless specifically stated otherwise. The capacitor, spark gap and primary coil make up what is commonly referred to as the primary tank circuit (See Fig. 1). The high voltage input provided by the NST charges the capacitor after passing through the primary windings of the coil. At some point the breakdown voltage of the spark gap is reached, the spark gap arcs over to close the tank circuit. The purpose of the spark gap is to act as a very fast switch. The primary tank circuit may be analyzed as a resonant LC circuit. As was mentioned earlier the spark gap acts as a very fast switch, closing the primary tank circuit for a few microseconds every time it fires. It should fire very rapidly. The distance between the two terminals of the spark gap must be set so that it is close enough to rapidly arc over, but far enough away so that a constant arc is not produced. The bottom end of the secondary coil is connected to an RF ground dedicated for its use. The secondary coil is concentrically inside of the primary coil. The top of the secondary coil is connected to a metal sphere or toroid to give it a capacitive load. The metal sphere or toroid forms one plate of the capacitor. The ground forms the other plate, and the atmosphere acts as the dielectric. This capacitance along with the inductance of the secondary coil forms a second LC circuit. An LC circuit is any circuit that contains both capacitors and inductors. An LC circuit will show resonance effects for a given frequency. The resonance frequency is the frequency at which the capacitor and the inductor have the same reactance. When an LC circuit has an input at resonance frequency it demonstrates an effect called resonant rise and the circuit will

2 oscillate. The capacitor is charged by the NST and stores this energy. This energy will begin to discharge into the primary coil. The current in the primary coil will build up a magnetic field which will now be storing the energy that was stored by the capacitor. The magnetic field created by the primary coil will breakdown and creates a current in the opposite direction. This current once more charges the capacitor and the cycle repeats. This cycle would be infinite if the entire circuit were constructed of ideal components. The real circuit has losses so the real cycle is dampened. A Tesla coil can be modeled as two LC circuits. The primary tank circuit (the capacitor, primary coil, and spark gap) makes up one LC circuit. The frequency of the primary tank circuit may be adjusted by changing the connection points on the primary coil. The secondary coil, its RF ground, and the discharge terminal make up the second LC circuit. An LC circuit can receive energy from a magnetic field at or near its resonance frequency. The magnetic field provided by the primary tank circuit is used to energize the LC circuit of the secondary coil, RF ground, and discharge terminal. The secondary coil amplifies this energy and will discharge it either as an arc of electricity to a grounded object or as a corona into the surrounding air if no grounded object is present [2]. increased capacitance. The bottles were lined on the outside with aluminum foil to provide the other plate. The formula for calculating capacitance is

C = ( 0 A) / d ,

(1)

where C is capacitance in Farads, is the dielectric constant of the material (estimated to be 7.6), 0 is the permittivity of free space, A is the surface area in square meters, and d is the plate separation in meters [3]. The capacitance was estimated to be 0.00075 F for one bottle by using (1). Eight of these bottles were connected in parallel to form the capacitor bank. The capacitor bank has an estimated total capacitance of 0.006 F. The formula for calculating the energy stored by a capacitor is

1 E = C (V )2 , 2

(2)

III. DESIGN AND EXPERIMENTATION There are two main objectives for this experiment. The first objective is to demonstrate that a functional Tesla coil can be constructed from materials that are either readily available or that can be improvised. The objective for the second part of the experiment is to explore the properties of high voltage, high frequency electricity. PART A DESIGNING THE TESLA COIL The high voltage input that the Tesla coil required was provided by a luminous tube transformer (NST). The NST was provided by a friend in the neon sign business. The NST has an input of 120 V, 6 A, and 60 Hz. The output of the NST is 12000 V, 0.060 A (60 mA), and 60 Hz. The capacitor was one part of the needed equipment that had to be improvised. A commercially available capacitor that could hold the charge needed at a voltage this high is not only hard to find but quite expensive. The capacitor was constructed with glass functioning as the dielectric. The first generation of these capacitors used mason jars lined on the inside and the outside with aluminum foil (commonly referred to as a Leyden jar). These capacitors would only function for a short period of time before the glass became too hot and shattered. The second generation solved this problem by using a solution of sodium chloride in water to function as the inner plate. In addition to preventing the glass from breaking (due to the fact that water has a high specific heat and conducts the heat away from the glass) this allowed the use of bottles, which could not be lined on the inside with aluminum foil. The bottles also had considerably more surface area which

where E is the energy stored in Joules, C is the capacitance in Farads, and V is the difference in electric potential between the two plates [3]. The energy stored by the capacitor bank when fully charged was estimated to be 0.432 J by using (2). The primary coil was designed from copper refrigerator tubing using an inverse-conical-helix form. The primary coil has a maximum radius of 0.077 m, an average radius of 0.06 m, it is 0.05 m tall, has a 45 angle of rise, and is tapped after 4 turns of tubing. According to [2], the inductance may be approximated by using

L = ( L1 sin( )) 2 + ( L2 sin( ))2 L1 = L2 = ( N ( R / 0.0254))2 , 8( R / 0.0254) + 11(W / 0.0254) ( N ( R / 0.0254))2 9( R / 0.0254) + 10( H / 0.0254)
(3)

where L is the inductance in micro Henries, is the angle of elevation of the coil, R is the average radius of the coil in meters, W is the maximum radius of the coil in meters, and H is the height of the coil in meters. The inductance was estimated to be 1.96 H by using (3). The secondary coil was constructed by winding AWG#20 magnet wire on a 2 PVC core. The secondary coil is .532 m tall, and has a radius of 0.03 m. It has 692 turns of wire. The Wheeler formula [ L2 in (3)] estimates the inductance of the secondary coil to be 3035.35 H. The discharge terminal was constructed from two metal bowls placed together so that the shape approximates a sphere. The spark gap consists of two metal bolts placed inside a PVC housing. It is designed so that the distance between the two bolts can be adjusted. It is enclosed in PVC because when the coil is in operation the spark gap is very bright and very loud. The NST and the secondary coil each had a dedicated RF ground which was achieved by driving a metal pipe several feet into the earth. There was a third RF ground constructed using this same technique that was used to ground a movable metal object. This grounded object was placed 0.15 m

3 (measured linearly from closest points) away from the discharge terminal. A variac was placed in between the NST and the main line. This provided a convenient way to turn the coil on and off. It also allowed precise control over the input voltage and thus the output voltage of the Tesla coil. The variac that was used has an input of 115 V and an output voltage that was variable from 0-130 V. This is also useful for setting the rate that the spark gap fires. All components were assembled using Fig. 1 as the circuit diagram (See Fig. 2 for a photograph of the set up). Maximum sustained arc length achieved was 0.15 m (See Fig. 8 for a photograph of the arc). According to [4], the formula shock the body, there is a very real danger of being burned by the intense heat produced by the arc at the point of contact.

IV. DISCUSSION The Tesla coil utilized in this experiment was designed to be constructed from materials that were readily available and inexpensive. This placed many limitations on the coil. Household wire was used to make the connections within the circuit. Wire designed to carry high voltages would have been used in an ideal situation. The NST is a popular choice for the high voltage source that a Tesla coil requires; however, there are other types transformers available that can dramatically raise the output of a Tesla coil. The least efficient component that caused the most significant reduction in final output voltage was determined to be the capacitor bank (See Fig. 4). The capacitors that were used limited the overall output of the coil. Salt-water-bottle capacitors are very inefficient and leak current. This could be seen as corona discharge around the capacitor bank. The only reason that this type of capacitor was selected is due to the fact that they are inexpensive, and the materials required for their construction are readily available. In addition to being inefficient, the capacitance of this type of capacitor is very low when compared to the optimal capacitance. The formula

kV = 65 (

L 0.7 ) , .0254

(4)

where kV is kilovolts and L is arc length in meters, can be used to estimate the output voltage of a medium-sized Tesla coil. The overall output of the Tesla coil was estimated to be 225,000 V by using (4). PART B PROPERTIES OF HIGH VOLTAGE, HIGH FREQUENCY ELECTRICITY In the presence of high frequency, high voltage electricity many materials lose their ability to act as an insulator. This was observed by attaching an insulated wire to the discharge terminal. When this was brought near a ground visible coronal discharge could be seen leaking through the insulation. Once this was brought a little closer the electricity arced directly through the insulation, generating enough heat to melt it. Nikola Tesla dreamed of a world where it would be possible to transmit electricity wirelessly. He was actually able to do this. He constructed a giant Tesla coil that was able to light up 200 light bulbs and run a motor from 25 miles away [1]. This experiment was repeated on a much smaller scale. A fluorescent light bulb was placed so that it stood vertically with the bottom in contact with the earth at a distance of 1.0 m from the secondary coil. Voltage was controlled by the variac and slowly increased from a starting point of 0 V. As soon as the input voltage was high enough to cause the spark gap to fire the bulb started glowing (See Fig. 10). As the input voltage was stepped up further the bulb would glow brighter. Experimentation showed that the bulb did not even need to be touching the ground, and at maximum power the light would light up even at distances approaching 2 meters. This works because the alternating electric field is so strong near the Tesla coil that it is able to excite the gas atoms inside the fluorescent tube without a wire connection. High voltage, high frequency electricity tends to flow over the surface of a conductor instead of flowing through the core. This was experimentally verified in the past with a much smaller coil by allowing the coil to arc to the hand. Only the slightest sensation of being shocked was detected. Due to the much greater output of this coil this could not be safely investigated during this experiment. Although theoretically the electricity should flow over the surface of the skin and not

Cmax =

1 , 2 ( f )(V / I )

(5)

where Cmax is the maximum capacitance in Farads, f is the frequency in Hertz, V is the voltage, and I is the current, can be used to find the capacitance where the reactance of a capacitor and a transformer match for a given frequency [2]. The maximum capacitance was calculated to be 13.263 F by using (5). Recall that the total capacitance of the capacitor bank used was calculated to be 0.006 F. Substituting these values into (2) it can be seen that the capacitor bank is only storing 0.05% of the energy that an ideal capacitor would store (for this particular transformer in an ideal circuit). The dielectric value of the glass (used to calculate the capacitance) was estimated. The dielectric value of glass can vary from a value of 4 to 10. Due to this significant degree of variation the value of 7.6 was chosen because it is roughly between the two extremes. It would be advisable to use a different type of capacitor if possible. Obviously (4), which was used to estimate the output voltage, is only an approximation due to the fact that arc length is dependant on many factors of which voltage is one. Atmospheric conditions such as pressure, temperature, and especially humidity would have significant influence on arc length. Lack of the equipment necessary to measure the actual values of capacitance of the capacitor bank, inductance of the primary and secondary coils, and output voltage of the secondary coil prevented further analysis.

4 V. CONCLUSION The experiment proved quite successful in demonstrating that a functional Tesla coil can be constructed from materials that are either readily available or that can be improvised. The experiment also demonstrated several properties of high voltage, high frequency electricity. Methods of improving the overall output and efficiency of the Tesla coil have been discussed and will be investigated in future rebuilds of the Tesla coil. APPENDIX
SPECIFICATIONS OF THE ELECTRICAL COMPONENTS USED IN CONSTRUCTION OF THE TESLA COIL Note that (*) indicates that the value has been estimated.

PHOTOGRAPHS

NST Manufacturer: Type:

Input: Output: Variable Control (Variac) Manufacturer: Model: Input: Output: Capacitor Bank Type: Capacitance: Primary Coil Type: Turns:

Jefferson Electric; Bellwood, IL Outdoor, non-weatherproof luminous tube transformer, midpoint ground 120 V, 6 A, 60 Hz 12000 V, .060 A, 60 Hz

Fig. 2. Photograph of the equipment as it was assembled for this experiment.

Calrad; Japan VC-5 115 V, 5 A 0-130 V, 575 VA

8 parallel salt-water-bottle capacitors 0.006 F (*)

Fig. 3. Different angle of equipment set up.

Inductance: Secondary Coil Type: Turns: Inductance: Maximum secondary output:

Copper tubing wound into an inverse-conical helix 0-8 depending on where the connections are made, was tapped at 4 turns for this experiment 1.96 H (*)

AWG#20 magnet wire wound on a 2PVC core 692 (*) 3035.35 H (*) 225,000 V (*)
Fig. 4. Close up view of the capacitor bank.

Fig. 5. This shows the distance between the discharge terminal and the grounded object, which was 0.15 m (15cm) in this photograph. Fig. 8. The input voltage is increased with the variac and the maximum sustained arc length of 0.15 m (15cm) is obtained.

Fig. 6. This shows the coronal streamers emanating from the discharge terminal. The coil is operating at slightly below the power necessary for it to arc to the grounded object to the right. Notice the streamers on the grounded object also.

Fig. 9. The input voltage was barely lowered until the arc dissipated, but the intense electric field between the discharge terminal and the grounded object is visible.

Fig. 7. Similar to Fig. 6. except that a longer exposure time was used to take the photograph.

Fig. 10. Demonstration of wireless illumination of a fluorescent lightbulb.

Fig. 11. Beautiful display of intense sustained arcs. In this photograph the grounded object is significantly closer to the discharge terminal.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT Grady L. Cutrer, III thanks Mike Elliot for providing the NST, Lambert Electric Motor Service for providing the magnet wire used to wind the secondary coil, and the late Grady L. Cutrer, Sr. for years of inspiration and for teaching me how to build my first Tesla coil. REFERENCES
[1] [2] Encarta Online Encyclopedia. Tesla, Nikola. Retrieved April 21, 2005. Available: http://encarta.msn.com H. Mehlhose. Tesla Coil Theory. Herbs Tesla Coil Page. Retrieved April 21, 2005. Available: http://home.wtal.de/herbs_teslapage/index.html R. A. Serway, J. W. Jewett, Jr. Physics for Scientists and Engineers. California: Brooks/Cole-Thomson Learning, 2004, ch. 26, 32. J. H. Couture. Voltage/Length. Retrieved April 21, 2005. Available: http://www.pupman.com/listarchives/1998/january/msg00387.html

[3] [4]