Schooled Coils
Tesla Coil Experiment for a Science Fair?
For a school science fair project I want to do something with a Tesla coil. What are some things you can test with a Tesla coil? I just need ideas of concepts or anything like that that I could experiment with.
I am a sophomore in highschool and I will be using the Tesla coils that my school owns with of course, supervision of a teacher.
Tesla Coils generate very high voltage, but they also generate radio frequencies. So you can do things like light up a florescent or neon tube with NO wires. Just hold a florescent light tube in your hand and bring it to within about 3 feet of the Tesla Coil and it will light up.
A Tesla Coil will generate sparks and corona of course, because of the high voltage. But you can also do another simple demonstration to show how the insulation of a wire can break down. Connect a thin wire to the output terminal and turn on the coil with dim lights. You will actually see a purple corona form around the wire. Depending on the output voltage of the Tesla Coil, the corona might be pretty bright and you might even be able to see it in normal room lighting.
But where are you going to get a Tesla Coil? You can build one yourself, and I’ve built several of them. But they can be EXTREMELY dangerous if you aren’t careful. A Tesla Coil is not a toy. They don’t work with static electricity, they use real current…high voltage alternating current. The high voltage transformer that powers a Tesla Coil can be a dangerous shock hazard.
I’m not trying to discourage you, I’m just saying that you need to be very careful. How old are you? You really should have someone help you.
Edit: Okay, here’s one of my Tesla Coils. I built this one several years ago. It still works great. It’s small and it easily fits on a table, but it will generate over 100,000 volts at a resonant frequency of about 1 megahertz:
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f86/gatewaycityca/100_4410b.jpg
Here’s a few pictures of what it can do:
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f86/gatewaycityca/tesla_coil_exposure_enhanced.jpg
Here I have a wire clipped to the terminal, and I’m just drawing sparks with a florecent ligh tube:
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f86/gatewaycityca/HV_corona_magnet_wire_small.jpg
And here’s me lighting up florecent light tubes with NO wires!
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f86/gatewaycityca/100_5524c.jpg
