7 replies to this topic

[Stanislav Husár]

Hi, Yesterday I was on competition, where I have seen tesla coil. Lighting, that it made, was cool. But that guy, who made it, played Star Wars theme on the tesla coill. I simply want to make my own one, possibly 2 to 6 tesla coils. I want Netduino to respond to MIDI commands and play it on tesla coils - that is why I want multiple tesla coils. But, unfortunately, I absolutely do not know how to make tesla coil. Could someone help me where to start? I do not need large lighting, 30 or 40 cm is enough, but I want to play notes from MIDI synthesizer on it.

[JerseyTechGuy]

I would suggest finding a science or engineering forum for the question of "how to make a Tesla coil".

[Paul Newton]

May the force be with you! I have also seen music being played on a Tesla coil. Looked really cool. Good Luck

[NooM]

iam sure one coild is enuff for a lot of frequencies (tones) - except the low ones, wich it can do.

i have no idea how exactly it works, but its simmiliar to a speaker

 

 

since it looks like you have no idea - id suggest not building something - or at least reading tons about it before, and electricity in general - its higly dangerous and can kill you.

 

 

// edit thats in the link is no tesla coil - still thats what you can expect of a small scale tesla coil

 

 

for real big ones - arc attack is a group that makes shows.

[Stanislav Husár]

I would suggest finding a science or engineering forum for the question of "how to make a Tesla coil".

Good point. I just hoped someone from there could help me.

 

May the force be with you!

I have also seen music being played on a Tesla coil.
Looked really cool.

Good Luck

Thank you

 

iam sure one coild is enuff for a lot of frequencies (tones) - except the low ones, wich it can do.

i have no idea how exactly it works, but its simmiliar to a speaker

 

 

since it looks like you have no idea - id suggest not building something - or at least reading tons about it before, and electricity in general - its higly dangerous and can kill you.

 

 

// edit thats in the link is no tesla coil - still thats what you can expect of a small scale tesla coil

 

 

for real big ones - arc attack is a group that makes shows.

1) One coil would be enough to play single tone at once. I want to play multiple tones at once.
2) You do not need to be afraid - I will do it with my electronics teacher.

3) What do you mean by arc attack ? Making arc between two TC ?

[hanzibal]

I guess they just turn the power on and off at different frequencies using a pwm controlled fast switch of some kind. I'm just guessing now but it probably requires really high voltage, like a 1000V or more so you need a coil and a big capacitor like the stuff used to light the sparkplugs on a petrol car engine.

The switch must be able to cut high voltage very quickly without getting over heated or bulding up a bridge between the poles so it's not likely a mechanical one.

What you see is a electrical discharge just like a thunderbolt lightning, this happens when the voltage is so high that the electrons eventually must jump through thin air in order to lower the potential of the pole their sitting on. This is called an arc because it forms a bridge between the two poles of very different potential. The light is photons sent out by the electrons when they loose the energy that they built up before taking the jump. This last process is very similar to what happens in a LED.

I don't know all the details but this is basically what happens.

You can generate polyphonic sound with pwm by implementing a mixer to blend the different frequencies that you want to play. There's a guy here on the forum that does exectly this and he's music player accepts midi songs:

http://forums.netdui...sed-controller/

[CW2]

1) One coil would be enough to play single tone at once. I want to play multiple tones at once.

 

You can play multiple tones at once using only one coil, it is just matter of modulation - for example, if you modulate the spark (arc) with pure sine wave, it will sound as single tone, if you use complex waveform (PWM), you'll get polyphony. In other words, if you get your Netduino play MIDI via 'normal' speaker, you just replace it with Tesla coil... plasma speaker. 

 

2) You do not need to be afraid - I will do it with my electronics teacher.

 

The circuit consists of high voltage power supply (~10 kV) and high frequency high voltage resonant transformer (~100 - 500 kV). It is potentially lethal. Take safety very seriously and try to understand first what and why you can do, especially when following what you see on the internet.

 

3) What do you mean by arc attack ? Making arc between two TC ?

 

ArcAttack is famous art group

[hanzibal]

I recently learned that these lightning arcs produce quite a lot of ozon which is not very healthy. Does anyone know more about this?