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Updated Nov. 27, 2004
Bi-Polar Tesla Coil & Plasma Chamber
A Discharge Containment & Amplification System
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Photos 1 & 5 - Ricoh RDC-7 digital camera, unshielded, August 5, 2004. Photos 2 & 4 - June, 2004. Photo 3 - 30 frame GIF. Photo 6 & 7, Ricoh RDC-7 shielded and grounded - August 11, 2004. Photos 1 through 7 were taken with my RDC-7, 3.3 mega-pixel digital camera. All digital images were mirrored with my RZ67 Pro II.
Aug. 11, 2004,
1.166 mb gif
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Photos 6 & 7 (RDC-7 digital, shielded and grounded) - August 11, 2004, my hand is about 1 or 2" from the front of the acrylic cabinet. I did get 'zapped' a few times, fairly mild.
I wanted this coil to have an antique and gothic sort of look to it and designed the cabinet above. There are two photos of the original enclosure at the bottom of this page. The new cabinet is made from oak with an ebony inlay down the center of the deck and tulip poplar component shelves inside. It's sealed with a gel stain and finished with three coats of clear, de-waxed shellac. The arms supporting the secondary with the 'U' shaped pieces that cradle the coil are both solid oak and removable. The deck is secured with 4 dowels inside and it can also be removed. No metal was used in the construction. The enclosed, six gap, ssg is vacuum evacuated with a 20 foot hose leading outside - to see the gap, click there -> Spark Gap this is about as far as you can take simple copper tubes in this art.
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July 24, 04 8-1-4 digital image, low resolution
The 4' x 3' x 6" acrylic argon chamber contains the action can be safely approached. You can even draw arcs through the acrylic to your hand and position a camera to within five or six inches of these four to five foot arcs, pretty cool. Look at the animation above and you'll see some of the discharges are traveling 12" to 18" up and/or down before spanning the four foot width of the chamber. Capable of repeated eight to 10 minute runs after which time the action in the chamber begins to 'gutter out' and needs to refill with cool argon. I inject the argon through a 1/4" acrylic tube at the bottom left of the acrylic cabinet and turn it down a bit but keep it running while the coil is in action. There's a 3/8" hole at the top which allows the hot argon and any breakdown products to escape. I leave the argon running at around 20 to 30 CFH (cubic foot per hour) while operating the coil. Pictures just don't do justice to the live event. I finished the prototype in early December, 2000. The oak cabinet was designed and completed in August, 2003. Here's a link to the text of my T.C.B.A. article: Why I did this
Specifications
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8-20-03 8-25-03 8-25-03
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2-26-01 1st Fire 3-25-01 3-28-01 4-5-01 res. off center 7-15-01 7-15-01
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7-15-01 7-15-01 7-29-01 8-3-01 8-03-01 8-03-01
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03-25-02 My mmc CSI caps Prototype
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Inside proto Close-ups of N manifold
Quenching with Nitrogen vs. Compressed Air
The original cabinet had the nitrogen manifold (above) attached to the prototype five gap ssg with 8-32 nylon bolts, the close-ups show the slots cut into the acrylic tube (and the yellowed epoxy). When powered with a regulated bottle of nitrogen the performance increase was a lot like pressing on a car accelerator. I'd start the pressure at around 25 to 40 lbs and slowly increase it. The break rate and performance would increase with the pressure and taper off at around 125 lbs. I've swapped out the nitrogen bottle for a regulated compressor during some runs and repeated this exercise. Results: Compressed air, while marginally effective, does not approach the quenching ability of nitrogen. The fittings on the nitrogen bottle and compressor are identical so it only takes a few seconds to swap out. This test was also performed on my 1/4 wave coil with similar results.
Here's a link to a table of Dielectric Gases & Assoc. Info
