Shop Notes 10/02 - Tesla Coil build

No high voltage today, sorry.  I'm adding several coats of HV varnish to the induction coil so I can up the power without arcing over internally.  The more I do now, the harder I'll be able to push the coil later😙

Since I was doing a lot of mill work today, I 'upgraded' the mist coolant to something more permanent and pro-looking.  Pretty simple setup, just a piece of bent aluminum hot-glued to a juice container.

One thing I will need to make the proper Tesla coil is a good circle-cutting jig.  Which basically is an aluminum bar that attached to a router, with an adjustable pin to set the diameter.

Machining the slide-rail (1/4in hole with 1/2in slot).  Almost identical to the glassblowing lathe I did last month.

Needs a little cleanup, but it's good enough to use now....

See where we're going with this?

Boom!   Primary+secondary coil form done.

Just need one more for the top ring.

Drilling holes for the wire support dowels

Adjusted the circle jig to cut one of the disks into a ring

Cutting a pile of dowels

This part was mind-numbing.  Drilling 16 holes into the dowels at both ends at 1.2 inches.  But thankfully it only has to be done once.

Starting to come together now.

Technically the coil form only needs to be a couple inches high, but making it bigger will give me room to rewind+experiment if I ever need to change the frequency in the future.

Also boring and nerve-wracking.  Making marks so I can properly align the coil as it is wound.

I'm not sure if I want to use a saw or the CNC mill to cut the grooves, or if I just want to leave them bare and work by-hand.

This is the rough calculated specs for the Tesla coil.  If all works well I will even be able to transmit+receive on the 40 meter HAM radio band with it.😄

Anyway, that's where I left off for today.  Tomorrow I'll hopefully get the extra coil built, then I can wind everything and test sometime out in the next few days.

Hope you enjoyed🤠