In this article, you will learn how to make a Tesla coil using medium-sized transistors with your own hands.

Step 1: Danger!

Unlike other high voltage experiments, Tesla coils can be very dangerous. If you get electrocuted by streamers, you won't feel any pain, but your circulation and nervous system may be seriously affected. Do not touch them under any circumstances!

In addition, I am not responsible for any damage caused to your health.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't work with high voltage, although if this is your first high voltage project, it's best to start with a good microwave oven transformer and don't risk your health!

Step 2: Required Materials

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The total cost of assembly at home was about 1500 rubles, since I already had wood, bottles, PVC and glue.

secondary coil:

• PVC pipe 38mm (the longer the better)
• About 90 meters of 0.5mm copper wire
• 4cm PVC screw (see picture)
• 5 cm threaded metal flange
• Enamel in a can
• Round, smooth metal object for discharging

Base:

• Various pieces of wood
• Long bolts, nuts and washers

Primary Coil:

• About 3m thin copper tube

Capacitors:

• 6 glass bottles
• Table salt
• Oil (I used canola oil. Mineral oil is preferred as it doesn't mold, but I didn't have any).
• Lots of aluminum foil
• High voltage power supply, such as neon, oil or other transformer, which delivers at least 9 kV about 30 mA.

Step 3: Secondary Coil

Fix the pipe to wrap around one end of the wire. Slowly and carefully start winding the coil, being careful not to layer the wires or leave gaps. This step is the most difficult and tedious part, but after spending a lot of time, you will get a great coil. About every 20 turns, wrap a ring of masking tape around the coil to keep the coil from untangling. When finished, secure both sides of the spool with thick tape and apply 2-3 coats of enamel.

Hints:

• I built a rig to wind my reel which consisted of a 3rpm microwave motor and a ball bearing.
• Use a small piece of wood with a notch (as shown) to straighten the wire and tighten the coil.

Step 4: Preparing the Base and Winding the Primary Coil

Align the metal stand to the center of the base and drill holes for the bolts. Screw the bolts upside down. This will allow you to place the base for the primary on top of it. Then put the base on the bolts. Take a copper tube and twist it into a cone shape (not as shown in the pictures). Then install the resulting spiral on the base.

Additionally, 2 supports were added, on which I put the winding.

I forgot to add how to make a spark gap! It's just two bolts in a wooden box and they can be adjusted etc. (See last photo)

Step 5: Capacitors

I decided to go the cheaper route and build the capacitors myself. The easiest way is to create capacitors using salt water, oil and aluminum foil. Wrap the bottle in foil and fill it with water. Try to make the same amount of water in each bottle as this will help keep the power stable.

The maximum amount of salt you can put in water is 0.359g/ml, but you end up with a lot of salt so you can reduce the amount considerably (I used 5 grams per bottle). Just make sure you use the same amount of salt and water in each bottle. Now, little by little, pour a few ml of oil into the bottle. Punch a hole in the top of the cover and insert a long wire into it. You now have one fully functioning capacitor, make 5 more of the same.

Optional: To place the bottles in the correct order, find some kind of metal box.

If you are using a neon transformer, 6 bottles will not be enough. Do 8-12.

Step 6: Putting All the Elements Together

Connect everything according to the attached diagram. The secondary ground cannot be grounded to the primary ground or your apartment will burn down.

Specifications of my coils:

• 599 turns on the secondary
• 6.5 turns on primary

Step 7: Launch!

Take the mini Tesla coil outside for the first run as it's actually not safe to run anything this powerful indoors. Turn the switch and enjoy the light show! My 9kV 30mA neon transformer makes the coil emit 15cm sparks. See below:

There are a few things that I understand I need to change about the Tesla Coil design. First of all, you need to redo the primary winding. It should be wrapped more tightly and with more turns. Besides, I want to assemble a better spark gap. I already have a new coil in my plans and it will be about two meters high!

I, like any person, have different hobbies, which have recently been called hobbies, and I want to tell you about one of them today.

Since school, I have been fond of radio electronics and assembling various circuits, and although now it has become part of the profession, sometimes I want to assemble something just for the soul.

This is exactly the assembly kit I bought on aliexpress, the kit allows you to assemble a mini Tesla coil, the price of the kit is $ 6.51. And with its help you can conduct some interesting experiments from a school physics course.

The kit comes in a small package and consists of very few parts, so it is easy to assemble and takes very little time.

The set comes with a rather detailed instruction, unfortunately in Chinese, but the scheme is quite simple, and the finished device does not require configuration.

The only thing you really need to know from the circuit is the coil supply voltage, which can be in the range of 12 to 30 volts at up to 1.5 amps.

The board of the device is made quite qualitatively, all the elements are signed, so you can assemble it without even looking at the diagram.

Creative mess before assembly.

We put as many as 4 resistors on the board and solder them.

Then we solder the remaining parts and before installing the transistors, do not forget to lubricate them with thermal paste, because they heat up very, very strongly.

On the coil, the manufacturer prudently pasted several marks with arrows, one of them shows the direction of winding the wire in the coil, and the second, as it turned out, indicates how the coil should be placed on the board itself.

But I didn't have the patience to figure it out. Therefore, the coil was safely soldered upside down, although it must be said that this did not particularly affect the performance.

Nothing is provided for mounting the coil in the design itself, so I had to use a small amount of hot melt adhesive.

Also included with the kit is a small piece of thick wire in insulation, it is needed in order to make the primary winding of our transformer. When winding the primary, it is very important that its direction coincides with the direction of winding the coil itself, for this reason the manufacturer placed an arrow on the coil that indicates where the primary winding should be wound.

Finished construction.

If everything was assembled correctly, then after turning on the LEDs will start to glow and a small blue spark may appear on the tip of the coil wire (or it may not appear, everything will depend on the supply voltage that will be applied to the circuit).

Included with the kit, the manufacturer will carefully put a small neon light bulb which you can check the operation of the circuit.

It does not need to be soldered anywhere, but with the help of this sweetie, you can conduct the first experiment with our assembled casket. If it is brought in a working coil, it begins to glow.

A slightly more spectacular trick can be done if you bring a discharge lamp to the coil.

As you can see in the photo, the lamp also begins to glow, while the brightness of the glow depends on the distance to the coil and the voltage applied to the circuit.

During operation, the coil consumes 0.6-0.8 amperes, so the transistors heat up very quickly despite the installed radiators, the average continuous operation time does not exceed 5-7 minutes, then you need to turn off the coil and let the transistors cool down.

After experimenting with light bulbs, I decided to try what would happen when interacting with more unusual things.

First in line was a gas discharge indicator lamp (just an old radio lamp will do) mounted directly into the coil.

The effect turned out to be very beautiful, I especially liked how the lightning inside the lamp moves around the bulb.

The next in line were the old Soviet neon light bulbs, they are larger than the one that the seller put in and therefore glow more beautifully. Well, just a spark.

This is where my main mistake showed itself, the fact is that the manufacturer did not just mark with a sticker how exactly to install the coil, he also left different lengths of wiring around the edges of the coil, and if in all other cases it was not critical, then when playing games with sparks, the short conductor began to melt very quickly and had to be carefully unwound from the coil.

Well, as always, there are few conclusions, as for me it’s a rather interesting homemade product for beginner radio amateurs or for the first assembly together with a child, the assembly process itself takes so little time that it doesn’t have time to get bored, but the result is a rather impressive device, although it doesn’t bring much benefit .

And finally, I want to note that the manufacturer strongly advises against touching the switched-on coil with bare hands and catching discharges from it on the skin surface, because as a result you can get a rather severe burn and irritation of the nerves, and here I probably agree with the manufacturer, because safety must always remain at the first place.

Many of us admire the genius of Nikola Tesla, who made such discoveries back in the 19th century that not all of his scientific legacy has been explored and understood to this day. One of his inventions was called the Tesla coil or Tesla transformer. You can read more about her. And here we will look at how to make a simple Tesla coil at home.

What do you need to make a Tesla Coil?

To make a Tesla coil at home, at our desk or even in the kitchen, we first need to stock up on everything we need.
So, first we must find or purchase the following.
From the tools we need:

• soldering iron
• glue gun
• Drill with a thin drill
• Hacksaw
• Scissors
• Insulating tape
• Marker

To collect the Tesla coil itself, you need to prepare the following:

• A piece of thick polypropylene pipe with a diameter of 20 mm.
• Copper wire with a diameter of 0.08-0.3 mm.
• piece of thick wire
• Transistor type KT31117B or 2N2222A (you can KT805, KT815, KT817)
• Resistor 22 kOhm (you can take resistors from 20 to 60 kOhm)
• Power supply (Krone)
• ping pong ball
• Piece of food foil
• The base on which the product will be attached is a piece of board or plastic
• Wires to connect our circuit

Having prepared everything you need, we proceed to the manufacture of the Tesla coil.

Instructions for making a Tesla coil

The most time-consuming process of making a Tesla coil at home will be winding the secondary winding L2. This is the most significant element in the Tesla transformer. And winding is a laborious process that requires accuracy and attention.

Let's prepare the base. For this, a PVC pipe with a diameter of 2 cm or more is suitable for us.

We mark the required length on the pipe - from about 9 to 20 cm. It is advisable to observe the proportion of 4-5: 1. Those. if you have a pipe with a diameter of 20 mm, then its length will be from 8 to 10 cm.

Then we saw off with a hacksaw along the mark left by the marker. The cut must be even and perpendicular to the pipe, because we will then glue this pipe to the board, and the ball will be glued on top.

The end of the pipe must be sanded with sandpaper on both sides. It is necessary to remove the chips left from sawing off a piece of pipe, and also level the surface for gluing it to the base.

Drill one hole at each end of the pipe. The diameter of these holes should be such that the wire that we will use when winding freely passes there. Those. it should be small holes. If you do not have such a thin drill, then you can solder the pipe using a thin carnation, heating it on the stove.

We skip the end of the wire for winding into the pipe.

We fix this end of the wire with a glue gun. We fix from the inside of the pipe.

We start winding the wire. To do this, you can use copper wire with insulation with a diameter of 0.08 to 0.3 mm. The winding should be tight, neat. Don't allow overlaps. The number of turns is from 300 to 1000, depending on your pipe and wire diameter. In our version, a wire of 0.08 mm is used. diameter and 300 turns of winding.

After the winding is finished, cut the wire, leaving a piece of 10 centimeters.

Pass the wire through the hole and secure from the inside with a drop of glue.

Now you need to glue the manufactured coil to the base. As a base, you can take a small board or a piece of plastic 15-20 cm in size. To glue the coil, you need to carefully smear its end.

Then we attach the secondary winding of the coil to its place on the base.

Then we glue the transistor, switch and resistor to the base. Thus, we fix all the elements on the board.

We make the coil L1. To do this, we need a thick wire. Diameter - from 1 mm. and more, depending on your reel. In our case, the thickness is 1 mm. wire will suffice. We take the rest of the pipe and wind 3 turns of thick wire in insulation on it.

Then we put the coil L1 on L2.

We collect all the elements of the Tesla coil according to this scheme.

Diagram of a simple Tesla coil

We attach all elements and wires to the base with a glue gun. We also glue the Krona battery so that nothing dangles.

Now we have to make the last element of the Tesla transformer - the emitter. It can be made from a tennis ball wrapped in food foil. To do this, take a piece of foil and simply wrap the ball in it. We cut off the excess so that the ball is evenly wrapped in foil and nothing sticks out.

We attach the ball in the foil to the upper wire of the L2 coil, pushing the wire inside the foil. We fix the place of attachment with a piece of electrical tape and glue the ball to the top of L2.

That's all! We made a Tesla coil with our own hands! This is what the device looks like.

Now it remains only to check the performance of the Tesla transformer we made. To do this, turn on the device, pick up a fluorescent lamp and bring it to the coil. We must see how the lamp brought up and burning right in the hands lights up and burns!

This means that everything turned out and everything works! You have become the owner of your own Tesla Coil. If you suddenly have problems, then check the voltage on the battery. Often, if the battery has been lying somewhere for a long time, it no longer works as expected.
But we hope you succeed! You can try to change the number of turns on the secondary winding of the L2 coil, as well as the number of turns and the thickness of the wire on the L1 coil. The power supply can also vary from 6V to 15V for such small coils. Try, experiment! And you will succeed!

The combination of several physical laws in one device is perceived by people far from physics as a miracle or a trick: outgoing discharges that look like lightning, fluorescent lamps glowing near the coil, not connected to a conventional power grid, etc. At the same time, you can assemble a Tesla coil with your own hands from standard parts sold in any electrical store. It is wiser to delegate the device setup to those who are familiar with the principles of electricity, or carefully study the relevant literature.

How Tesla invented his coil

Nikola Tesla - the greatest inventor of the 20th century

One of the areas of work of Nikola Tesla at the end of the nineteenth century was the task of transmitting electrical energy over long distances without wires. On May 20, 1891, at his lecture at the University of Columbia (USA), he demonstrated an amazing device to the staff of the American Institute of Electrical Engineering. The principle of its operation is the basis of modern energy-saving fluorescent lamps.

During experiments with the Ruhmkorff coil according to the method of Heinrich Hertz, Tesla discovered overheating of the steel core and melting of the insulation between the windings when a high-speed alternator was connected to the device. Then he decided to modify the design by creating an air gap between the windings and moving the core to different positions. He added a capacitor to the circuit to prevent the coil from burning out.

Tesla coil working principle and application

When the corresponding potential difference is reached, the excess energy comes out in the form of a streamer with a violet glow

This is a resonant transformer, which is based on the following algorithm:

• the capacitor is charged from a high-voltage transformer;
• when the required charge level is reached, a discharge occurs with a spark jump;
• a short circuit occurs in the primary coil of the transformer, leading to oscillations;
• sorting through the connection point to the turns of the primary coil, change the resistance and tune the entire circuit.

As a result, the high voltage at the top of the secondary winding will cause spectacular discharges in the air. For greater clarity, the principle of operation of the device is compared with a swing that a person swings. A swing is an oscillatory circuit of a transformer, a capacitor and a spark gap, a person is the primary winding, the swing stroke is the movement of electric current, and the height of the lift is the potential difference. It is enough to push the swing several times with a certain effort, as they rise to a considerable height.

In addition to cognitive and aesthetic use (demonstration of discharges and lamps glowing without connecting to the mains), the device has found its application in the following industries:

• radio control;
• transmission of data and energy without wires;
• darsonvalization in medicine - treatment of the skin surface with weak high-frequency currents for toning and healing;
• ignition of gas-discharge lamps;
• search for leaks in vacuum systems, etc.

Making a Tesla coil with your own hands at home

Designing and creating a device is not difficult for people familiar with the principles of electrical engineering and electricity. However, even a beginner will be able to cope with this task if you make competent calculations and carefully follow the step-by-step instructions. In any case, before starting work, be sure to familiarize yourself with the safety regulations for working with high voltage.

Scheme

A Tesla coil is two coreless coils that send out a large current pulse. The primary winding consists of 10 turns, the secondary - of 1000. The inclusion of a capacitor in the circuit makes it possible to minimize the loss of spark charge. The output potential difference exceeds millions of volts, which allows you to get spectacular and spectacular electrical discharges.

Before you start making a coil with your own hands, you need to study the scheme of its structure.

Tools and materials

For the collection and subsequent operation of the Tesla coil, you will need to prepare the following materials and equipment:

• transformer with output voltage from 4 kV 35 mA;
• bolts and a metal ball for the arrester;
• capacitor with calculated capacitance parameters not lower than 0.33 µF 275 V;
• PVC pipe with a diameter of 75 mm;
• enamelled copper wire with a cross section of 0.3–0.6 mm - plastic insulation prevents breakdown;
• hollow metal ball;
• thick cable or copper tube with a cross section of 6 mm.

Step-by-step instructions for making a coil

Powerful batteries can also be used as a power source

The coil manufacturing algorithm consists of the following steps:

1. Selection of a power source. The best option for a beginner is transformers for neon signs. In any case, the output voltage on them should not be lower than 4 kV.
2. Making a spark gap. The overall performance of the device depends on the quality of this element. In the simplest case, these can be ordinary bolts screwed at a distance of several millimeters from each other, between which a metal ball is installed. The distance is chosen in such a way that the spark flies when only the arrester is connected to the transformer.
3. Capacitor capacitance calculation. The resonant capacitance of the transformer is multiplied by 1.5 and the desired value is obtained. It is more reasonable to purchase a capacitor with the given parameters ready-made, since in the absence of sufficient experience it is difficult to assemble this element on your own to make it work. In this case, it may be difficult to determine its nominal capacity. As a rule, in the absence of a large element, the coil capacitors are an assembly of three rows of 24 capacitors each. In this case, a quenching resistor of 10 MΩ must be installed on each capacitor.
4. Creation of a secondary coil. The height of the coil is equal to five of its diameters. Under this length, a suitable available material is selected, for example, a PVC pipe. It is wrapped with copper wire in 900-1000 turns, and then varnished to preserve the aesthetic appearance. A hollow metal ball is attached to the upper part, and the lower part is grounded. It is advisable to consider a separate grounding, since when using a common house, there is a high probability of failure of other electrical appliances. If there is no finished metal ball, then it can be replaced with other similar options made independently:
   • wrap the plastic ball with foil, which should be carefully smoothed;
   • wrap the corrugated pipe rolled into a circle with aluminum tape.
5. Creation of the primary coil. The thickness of the tube prevents resistive losses; with increasing thickness, its ability to deform decreases. Therefore, a very thick cable or tube will bend badly and crack at the bends. The pitch between the turns is maintained at 3–5 mm, the number of turns depends on the overall dimensions of the coil and is selected experimentally, as well as the place where the device is connected to the power source.
6. Trial run. After completing the initial settings, the coil is started.

Features of manufacturing other types of devices

It is mainly used for health purposes.

For the manufacture of a flat coil, a base is preliminarily prepared, on which two copper wires with a cross section of 1.5 mm are sequentially laid parallel to the plane of the base. Top laying is varnished, extending the service life. Externally, this device is a container of two nested spiral plates connected to a power source.

The technology for manufacturing a mini-coil is identical to the algorithm discussed above for a standard transformer, but in this case, fewer consumables will be needed, and it can be powered from a standard 9V Krona battery.

Video: how to create a mini tesla coil

By connecting the coil to a transformer that outputs current through high-frequency musical waves, a device can be obtained whose discharges change depending on the rhythm of the sounding music. It is used in the organization of shows and entertainment attractions.

The Tesla coil is a high frequency high voltage resonant transformer. Energy losses at a high potential difference make it possible to obtain beautiful electrical phenomena in the form of lightning, self-igniting lamps that respond to the musical rhythm of discharges, etc. This device can be assembled from standard electrical parts. However, one should not forget about precautions both during the creation and during the use of the device.

Nikola Tesla is truly the greatest inventor of all time. He practically created the entire modern world. Without his inventions, we would not have known about the electric current for a long time what we know now.
One of Tesla's striking and amazing inventions is his coil or transformer. Which perfectly demonstrates the transfer of energy at a distance.
To experiment, to please and surprise your friends, you can build a simple but fully functional prototype at home. This does not require a large number of scarce parts and a lot of time.

To make a Tesla Coil you will need:

• Can of CDs.
• A piece of polypropylene tubing.
• Switch.
• Transistor 2n2222 (possible domestic type kt815, kt817, kt805, etc.).
• Resistor 20-60 kOhm.
• Wires.
• Wire 0.08-0.3 mm.
• 9V battery or other 6-15V source.

Instruments: stationery knife, hot glue gun, awl, scissors and maybe another tool that is in almost every home.

DIY Tesla Coil Making

First of all, we need to cut off a piece of polypropylene tube about 12-20 centimeters long. Any pipe diameter, take what is at hand.

Let's take a thin wire. We fix one end with electrical tape and begin to wind tightly, coil to coil, until we close the entire tube, leaving 1 centimeter from the edge. As we wind, we fix the second end of the wire with electrical tape, too. You can use hot glue, but in this case you have to wait a bit.

We take a case from disks and make three holes for the wire. See photo.

We cut a groove for the switch with which we will turn our Tesla coil on and off.

To make it look better, I painted the box with spray paint.

Insert the switch. We glue the coil wound on the tube with hot glue in the middle of the can.

Pass the lower end of the wire through the hole.

We take the wire thicker. We will make a power coil out of it.

Wrap around the tube with wire. We do not close, at some distance. Coil 4-5 turns.

Both ends of the resulting coil are passed into the holes.
Let's build the schema:

I glued the transistor with hot glue to the soda cap, which I also glued with hot glue. Yes, in general, we fix all the elements, including wires and a battery, with this glue.

Next, we make an electrode. Take a ping pong ball, golf ball, or other small ball and wrap it in aluminum foil. Cut off the excess with scissors.