How Does a Tesla Coil Work
Author: Robert Benjamin
One time when I was a young boy I saw a documentary on tv, that happened to show a large tesla coil in operation at some college, from that moment on the Tesla Coil bug had bitten me. I knew someday I would have to own one of these wonderful devices. The loud noise, the powerful arcs of flowing electric was completely amazing. Now that I am getting older, I am the proud owner of three tesla coils, a wimhurst machine, van de graff generator, odin coil, and other high voltage devices.
If you do some searching on the internet or other sources for tesla coils, most places try to explain these devices in terms that only a physics expert can understand. I have broken down the tesla coil into it's 6 main parts or components, with easy to understand terminology on the operation. The 6 main components are the transformer, capacitor, spark gap, primary coil, secondary coil and discharge sphere.
The TRANSFORMER takes 110 volt wall socket current or current from another source, and steps it up to several thousand volts (depending on the transformer). CAPACITOR - Acts like a battery, and takes the stepped-up voltage and stores it until it's fully charged. Once fully charged, the SPARK-GAP fires, releasing all of the capacitors stored energy in a sngle powerful burst or pulse. From the SPARK-GAP, the current flows to the large PRIMARY COIL. The PRIMARY COIL, is usually made from thick copper wire or even pipe, consisting of 5-25 turns or coils. This large copper coil produces a strong magntic field as the current flows through it, the current is then picked up by the SECONDARY COIL. The SECONDARY COIL, acts like another transformer, and consists of numerous turns or coils of smaller gauge copper wire. Here the current continues building by the effects of the magnetic field on the copper, until it reaches massive voltage levels. This current moves up into the DISCHARGE SPHERE. The DISCHARGE SPHERE also acts like a simple capacitor (storage battery), before discharging the current as sparks and corona.
There is a website that describes the tesla coil and numerous other high voltage devices in detail, this website is called: How a Tesla Coil Works and it may be found at this url: http://www.rb59.com/tesla-coil/tesla-coil.html
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Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/computers-articles/how-does-a-tesla-coil-work-572536.html
About the Author
Robert W. Benjamin has been in the software business on the internet since 2001, and has been producing low-cost software for many years. He first released software on the AMIGA and C64 computer systems in the late 1970's-80's. Robert has written many articles pertaining to numerous subjects, and he has also developed over 7 different websites. Seasonal Vacation Spots http://www.seasonalvacationspots.com
How can we utilize Tesla’s free energy tower idea to make a practical machine supplying wireless energy?
I want to make a small version (only if it would be easy) to get free wireless energy for at least a couple acres of range. I haven’t done that much research on his invention, so sorry if this seems very impractical. If you can give me step-by-step instructions on how to do this, and it works, I’ll give you 10 points! (I was only a little sarcastic.)
Does anyone have any details about Tesla’s wireless electricity.?
I believe his research papers were destroyed by US Govt. Also, that the Tungusca ‘explosion’ was due to a similar experiment, maybe even based on Tesla’s ‘missing’ research, conducted well away from any American intervention. Any Ideas?
Did Nikola Tesla really develop wireless electricity?
If yes, how come it has obscured over time? If not, why are there so many stories around it?
Is Nikola Tesla’s wireless electricity real? Why we don’t use it if it’s so fantastic?
I’ve read something about it, and people say that he was sabotaged, but don’t offer too much detail on field tests for this technology or actual application.
100 years ago Nikola Tesla invented Free Wireless Electricity, why dont we have it today?
Nikola Tesla: Father of Free Wireless Electricity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfvd1g_fcUo
Not practical? Why? Because JP Morgan Chase didnt know how to make money off FREE?
Yes, but it really wasn’t anything new. We use it today for communication (radio), but we use conduction (wires) for power transmission because it’s much cheaper and more efficient. Every transformer uses it, and inductive coupling is used for charging some cordless appliances like the electric toothbrush. People love to tell stories about Tesla, since he was such an eccentric personality.
We are starting to use it. There are companies popping up all over the world specializing in creating wireless power for charging mobile phones, iPods, other portable devices. Not sure about any damaging effects it has yet, but doubt there would be many, if any.
When Nikola Tesla discovered alternating current (AC) electricity, he had great difficulty convincing men of his time to believe in it. Thomas Edison was in favor of direct current (DC) electricity and opposed AC electricity strenuously. Tesla eventually sold his rights to his alternating current patents to George Westinghouse for $1,000,000. After paying off his investors, Tesla spent his remaining funds on his other inventions and culminated his efforts in a major breakthrough in 1899 at Colorado Springs by transmitting 100 million volts of high-frequency electric power wirelessly over a distance of 26 miles at which he lit up a bank of 200 light bulbs and ran one electric motor! With this souped up version of his Tesla coil, Tesla claimed that only 5% of the transmitted energy was lost in the process. But broke of funds again, he looked for investors to back his project of broadcasting electric power in almost unlimited amounts to any point on the globe. The method he would use to produce this wireless power was to employ the earth’s own resonance with its specific vibrational frequency to conduct AC electricity via a large electric oscillator. When J.P. Morgan agreed to underwrite Tesla’s project, a strange structure was begun and almost completed near Wardenclyffe in Long Island, N.Y. Looking like a huge lattice-like, wooden oil derrick with a mushroom cap, it had a total height of 200 feet. Then suddenly, Morgan withdrew his support to the project in 1906, and eventually the structure was dynamited and brought down in 1917.When Tesla was determining the resonant frequencies of the earth to potentially transmit unlimited electric power, he also recognized frequencies that acted as a damping field to nullify electric power. With the advent of the wireless and Tesla’s unique investigations into broadcasting electricity, a dozen or more inventors thereafter announced their own means for transmitting electrical energy without wires. One British inventor, H. Grindell-Matthews, actually demonstrated his “mystery ray” apparatus in 1924 to a Popular Science Monthly writer in London (See: Pop. Sci. Monthly, Aug. 1924, P. 33). When his beam was directed toward the magneto system of a gasoline engine, it stopped the system. Afterwards, it ignited gun powder, lit an electric lamp bulb from a distance and killed a mouse in seconds! Grindell-Matthews said the secret was involved with the “carrier beam” he used to conduct a high-voltage, low-frequency electrical current. During 1936, Guglielmo Marconi experimented with extremely low frequency (ELF) waves and displayed their exceptional ability to penetrate metallic shielding. These waves could affect electrical devices, overload circuits and cause machines like generators, electric motors and automobiles to stall. Diesel engines, which do not rely on electrical ignition, were not affected. Mysteriously, Marconi’s research on the subject was never found after the war.
The video states that J.P. Morgan stopped financing Tesla because he realized there was no way to charge people for the electricity. As with a lot of things money got in the way.
Something else interesting about Tesla was his involvement with Einstein in the Philadelphia experiment.
Tesla was a brilliant and underrated genius who was ripped off by several people and never got the acclaim he deserved for his inventions. But the basic problem with his wireless power transmission system is finding a form of radiant energy that can be generated, transmitted and absorbed with almost 100% efficiency, but is only absorbed by the receiver, not by anything else. We haven’t had much luck finding one. Take microwaves. You can turn electricity into a beam of microwaves, transmit them through space or air and convert them back to electricity reasonably efficiently. It’s been suggested as a way to get energy from solar panels in space down to Earth. But if you get in the way, you get cooked. Then there’s neutrinos. A beam carrying megawatts of energy in the form of neutrinos would be completely safe; you’d hardly absorb any of them. But they’re difficult to generate efficiently and almost impossible to intercept and convert into useful energy. Similarly with gravity waves. But if you want to build just a demo, microwaves are your best bet. A model helicopter powered by an electric motor has been kept aloft by a beam of microwaves generated on the ground. The chopper consists of a grid of diodes to intercept the microwave beam and convert it to DC, which is then fed to the motor which turns the rotors. Just don’t get in the way of the beam.