19 Facts About Tesla coil

Tesla coil is an electrical resonant transformer circuit designed by inventor Nikola Tesla in 1891.

Tesla coil used these circuits to conduct innovative experiments in electrical lighting, phosphorescence, X-ray generation, high frequency alternating current phenomena, electrotherapy, and the transmission of electrical energy without wires.

Tesla coil circuits were used commercially in sparkgap radio transmitters for wireless telegraphy until the 1920s, and in medical equipment such as electrotherapy and violet ray devices.

Tesla coil is a radio frequency oscillator that drives an air-core double-tuned resonant transformer to produce high voltages at low currents.

The primary Tesla coil consisting of a relatively few turns of heavy copper wire or tubing, is connected to a capacitor through the spark gap.

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Peculiar design of the Tesla coil is dictated by the need to achieve low resistive energy losses at high frequencies, which results in the largest secondary voltages:.

Each pulse dies out before the next spark occurs, so the Tesla coil generates a string of damped waves, not a continuous sinusoidal voltage.

Since the capacitance of the secondary Tesla coil is very small compared to the primary capacitor, the primary voltage is stepped up to a high value.

Term "Tesla coil" is applied to a number of high voltage resonant transformer circuits.

The secondary LC circuit is composed of a tightly coupled air-core transformer secondary Tesla coil driving the bottom of a separate third Tesla coil helical resonator.

Since the third Tesla coil is located some distance away from the driver, it is not magnetically coupled to it.

The primary winding of a traditional transistor Tesla coil is wound around only the bottom portion of the secondary coil.

Tesla coil experimented with these, and many other, circuit configurations.

The Tesla coil primary winding, spark gap and tank capacitor are connected in series.

Tesla coil discharges are formed as a result of displacement currents as pulses of electrical charge are rapidly transferred between the high-voltage toroid and nearby regions within the air.

Current world's largest Tesla coil is a 130,000-watt unit built by Greg Leyh and Eric Orr, part of a 38-foot-tall sculpture titled Electrum owned by Alan Gibbs and currently residing in a private sculpture park at Kakanui Point near Auckland, New Zealand.

High voltage radio frequency discharges from the output terminal of a Tesla coil pose a unique hazard not found in other high voltage equipment: when passed through the body they often do not cause the painful sensation and muscle contraction of electric shock, as lower frequency AC or DC currents do.

Carefully controlled Tesla coil currents, applied directly to the skin by electrodes, were used in the early 20th century for deep body tissue heating in the medical field of longwave diathermy.

An erroneous explanation for the absence of electric shock that has persisted among Tesla coil hobbyists is that the high frequency currents travel through the body close to the surface, and thus do not penetrate to vital organs or nerves, due to an electromagnetic phenomenon called skin effect.