Solid State Tesla Coil

last updated:11 May 2002

All informations in this page are published free and are intended for private/educational purposes and not for commercial applications .

Completely Solid State Tesla Coil of my Own Design

Solid State High Power Tesla Coil (20 Jul 2002)

I take back everything I ever said about solid state tesla coils producing small sparks. Above are two examples of several inch sparks being drawn from the top of the coil. The large sparks were produced at the 340 kHz resonance. Also (as Tesla had stated) I have discovered if I chirp up the frequency I can produce longer sparks.

I am Your Father, come to the dark side you hoser, Ah. (quote from 'Strange Brew') No it's not a light saber. Here is a picture of my new complety solid state high power tesla coil, lighting up a 40W florescent light brighter than if I had plugged it in. Wireless lighting.

The solid state tesla coil may not produce as long of sparks as its cousin the spark gap variey, but it produces a steady, CW, high power RF field. (74 kHz resonance)

This is a picture of the coil with no cap. The RF streamers radiate off the top of the coil and start to burn the PVC. This coil has several resonance frequencies including 758 kHz, 373 kHz, 186 kHz, 94 kHz*, 74 KHz*, 68 kHz, 62.1 kHz*, 57 kHz, 53.9 kHz*, etc.. (*=stronger resonances) The resonance frequencies shift around depending on what the coil is driving. This coil does not give shocks, it gives RF burns. In fact, the HOME DEPOT yard stick (with a neon bulb attached to the to find resonances) smokes and internally catches on fire due to the RF.

This is the predriver (preamp) circuit to drive the power driver stage. It consists of an n-channel and p-channel FETs to drive the input of the power FET's

This is the power amp stage of the driver circuit. It consists of 4 NTE 2377 FET's mounted to a monster heat sink. These are all driven in parallel to produce the high output power to drive the coil.

Here is the circuit diagram for the pre-driver and power driver circuit. The pre-driver uses an n and p channel fet (NTE 2380,2381) and the power driver circuit uses only n-channel FET's ( four NTE 2377). I have only drawn 2 to conserve room.

Light Bulb Plasma Globe (26 Jul 2002)

On this page, I'm going to explain how to build a plasma globe using a common every day light bulb. No vacuum chambers or exotic gasses. The catch is you have to build a completely solid state tesla coil like the one I built. Above is a lare 4 inch clear light bulb. The filiment is hooked to the high voltage out put of the tesla coil. Look familliar? Just like the plasma globes you see at Spencers. But only this one is a light bulb

Here are a couple picture of a plasma globe made out of a smaller light bulb. notice that the qualities of the plasma are quite different. The large globe had long purple traveling finger discarged, while the smaller bulb has finer crackling multi-color displays.

Here is a picture of the smaller light bulb attached to a stick to save my fingers an rf burn. (believe me it is an UNPLEASANT experience to touch something grounded while being too close to the coil) The discharges were created using a frequency around the 340 kHz resonance.

Copyright Information

Unless otherwise noted, all materials at this site (including without limitation all text, html markup, graphics, and graphic elements) are copyrighted ), 2002 by Reginald L. Jaynes. The material available through this site may be freely used for attributed noncommercial educational purposes only. We ask that due credit and notification be given the author.  

All materials appearing on this website may not be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or used in any way for commercial purposes without the express prior written permission of the copyright holder.  

Disclaimer: The author assumes no liability for any incidental, consequential or other liability from the use of this information. All risks and damages, incidental or otherwise, arising from the use or misuse of the information contained herein are entirely the responsibility of the user. Although careful precaution has been taken in the preparation of this material, we assume no responsibility for omissions or errors.  

HOME

Send e-mail to: dr_jaynes@hotmail.com