In celebration of Nikola Tesla’s birthday, students from the Physics Student Union gathered last Wednesday to construct a Tesla coil, which is an electrical resonant transformer circuit that can be used to produce high-voltage, low-current, high frequency alternating-current electricity.
Tesla, who may be best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current, used to invite the press to his birthday parties to announce new inventions he was working on.
Tesla coils were mainly used for electrical experiments in areas like phosphorescence and X-ray generation, but were also sold commercially until the 1920s for spark-gap radio transmitters for wireless telegraphy. Today, Tesla coils are found at places like the Telus World of Science and are mainly used for entertainment and educational purposes.
Because of the specific nature of the solid state coil, it can also be hooked up to an iPod to broadcast music, just like a speaker.
“Our parts didn’t arrive on time for his birthday on July 10, so we had the cake but we didn’t get to eat it too,” said Brandon Denis, Vice-President of the Physics Student Association and SFSS Forum Physics Representative, “So this is when we get to eat it too.”
Denis has always wanted to build a Tesla coil, but he credits his girlfriend with providing extra motivation to actually begin the project. “I told my girlfriend that I wanted to build a Tesla coil at some time in my life, and she told me to just go for it,” said Denis. “She pushed me to make the event and organize it, and now here we are making the project.”
The ultimate goal of the day was to build a large scale version of a Tesla coil, which would reach about one metre in height. However, instead of the more common spark-gap Tesla coil, the team hoped to build a solid state Tesla coil, which instead of having to constantly recharge is able to be turned on and off.
By being able to turn the coil on and off at will, the team hopes to be able to convert the low voltage high current through the primary coil into a high voltage low current. “This is done by winding a primary coil around a secondary coil,” explained Denis. “The primary coil will have 5 or so winds where as the secondary will have just over 2500 winds. Because of the way transformer coils interacting work we are able to convert from AC 25 Volts into 12,000 Volts at the business end.”
Because of the specific nature of the solid state coil, it can also be hooked up to an iPod to broadcast music, just like a speaker.
If the coil works, Denis and his team plan to display it at FROSH, Geek Week, and other science events throughout the year. The team also hopes to host many more events in the future where physics students, engineering students, and tinkerers alike can collaborate to work on similar projects.
