The QRM900 Tesla coil


Posted on Feb 6, 2014

My major project over the last few months has been the construction of a small Tesla coil, having wanted to make one for many years now. My first experience was at a demo day at UNSW over a decade ago, and since then I`ve always had a bit of a fascination for them. Since moving back to Sydney from Holland, I`ve had plenty of spare time, so what be


The QRM900 Tesla coil
Click here to download the full size of the above Circuit.

tter to do that to finally build the coil So finally I started researching coils and began planning. I gradually obtained all the parts I needed, thanks mostly to eBay, the local hardware stores, and much scrounging around local rubbish skips (these proved to be the most valuable!). Throughout April, I spent a massive amount of time working on the coil, and it became a near fulltime project. I wanted to make the coil portable, modular and scalable. The mechanical design I came up with allows the device to be (dis)assembled without tools and in about 3 minutes. Individual parts (eg NST, filter block, spark gap) can be removed in seconds thanks to spade connectors and dowel/hole supports. What came out of it all was a 6 inch coil, powered by a 900 watt NST and occasionally boosted to 1400 watts with a second smaller NST. Maximum spark length so far is 80cm (about 30 inches), which I anticipate can be doubled with further optimisation. Following is a detailed description of the coil. Power factor correction capacitor, bought from Jaycar (large motor start cap. Coilers have said that motor run caps are better, but these are big (10cmx5cm) and haven`t gotten warm yet. ) The baseboard and majority of the structure is made from laminated chipboard, conveniently scrounged from a couple of skips. All the wood was hand sawed, not having a power saw. This took a huge amount of time and energy! Edges were finished with iron-on...




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