[ §0 · legends ]
Tesla coil builders and legends
The people behind the drivers, from Tesla himself to today's builders. Each has a page with photographs, sources and the builds they have on the driver tree.
The people
- Richie BurnettBuilt and wrote up the first solid-state coil that performed, in May 2000: a primary driven straight from the bridge, run from four supplies, with photographs of what each envelope did to the spark. By Anders Mikkelsen's account he also ran the first QCW experiments.
- Steve WardOn all three trees: first SSTC in 2003, the DRSSTC design guide in 2005, the Universal Driver in 2008, the first deliberate QCW in 2010.
- Gao GuangyanloneoceansWrote the pages a generation of builders learned from: four SSTCs, three DRSSTCs, UD2.7 as a kit, and the first fully documented QCW builds.
Anders MikkelsenSelf-oscillating SiC drivers, APWM ramping without a buck, and arcs over three metres off a 16 cm winding, all published as he went.
- Steve Connerscopeboy.comAn independent DRSSTC line from 2005: the CD4046 PLL driver, a tuning trick that keeps primary current in check on a ground strike, and the pulse-skip idea for ramping.
- Jens KerrinnesNetzpfuscherTook the Universal Driver onto a microcontroller: UD3, with autotune, MIDI, a command line and a frequency sweep built in.
- Daniel Marksprofdc9, KW4TIUD2.9: the UD2.7C rebuilt through-hole with a pulse-skip jumper, released under CC-BY-SA so anyone who would rather solder than reflow can build it.
Daniël EindhovenTeslaCommanderRAIKIRI, a battery staff with a 1200 V SiC full bridge run as APWM and a ramp scaled to the bus: 350 cm of arc off a 14 cm winding, the longest on the records wall.
For boards rather than people, every documented driver and build, SSTC, DRSSTC and QCW, has a card on the driver tree with the builder's own photographs and schematics and a link to where they published it.