Nuts and Volts - April 2014

BUILD IT YOURSELF

I like to look at patents from the past, and often wonder what the inventor would have done with modern day hardware. I was recently looking at Tesla patents that describe the infamous Tesla coil and wondered how Mr. Tesla would have implemented his concept of wireless energy transmission if he had access to 21st century electronic parts like transistors and dielectrics. I have always wanted to build a Tesla coil, but have been put off by the tedium of tweaking spark gaps and dealing with dangerously high voltages. I decided to try building something loosely based on the original Tesla coil using much lower and safer input voltages that could at least be powerful enough to enjoy Tesla effects such as wirelessly lighting nearby CFLs (compact fluorescent lamps) and to study the concept. This article is a review of how I went about building my own version of a solid-state tabletop Tesla-like coil using common off-the-shelf parts. It won't exactly light a city, but it is a lot of fun to play with.