Big Tesla Coil
The Big Tesla coil is 56" tall with a base that is 24" on a side.
The 8"x31" secondary is PVC wound with #20 magnet wire.
The flat-spiral primary is rg-214 silver braid coax, tuned by poking in a sharp copper contact.
The spark gap is a dual-copper pipe static gap that is vacuum quenched with a shopvac.
The cap is a 0.02 uF @45 KV Maxwell.
The toroid is 5.5" x 20" from ross engineering.
The power supply is four 15KV / 60 mA FranceFormer Neon Sign Transformers in parallel.
The base is connected to an 8' ground rod using a thick copper jumper cable.
The sparks are about 80" long, which should be about 1.5 million volts.
The firepit was very bad that week and had to be spanked.
These are the dual-static gaps (series by the copper strap) quenched
by the vacuum from the shopvac.
The coil is live, both gaps firing. Capacitor is in front of
the coil. The power supply is visible to the right.
View from a safe distance. Power cables are barely visible going
away to the mid-left.
Ground rod connection is to the lower left. Firepit is also connected
to ground at the coil.
A bigger toroid made from duct tubing and aluminum tape, is added to
increase output voltage.
