Hi, I built a few tesla coils for fun in the past, nothing big or fancy. But I want to try out a tesla that can play music, came across this schematic from a ebay kit .
I know it is a "slayer exciter " that oscillates by itself, the secoundary coil providing feedback into the Base of the transistor trough the " capacitance of top load trough air " and it is " modulated by the mosfet something similar to AM radio if Im not wrong, but I have a few questions about the schematic:
Please explain to me what these components really do, and maybe help me improve it ?.
Thank you , Bruno!.
Also sorry if I posted in the wrong section .
I know it is a "slayer exciter " that oscillates by itself, the secoundary coil providing feedback into the Base of the transistor trough the " capacitance of top load trough air " and it is " modulated by the mosfet something similar to AM radio if Im not wrong, but I have a few questions about the schematic:
- Shouldn't D1 be from base to ground instead ? ( in LTSpice it does not work with it as in the schematic, WHY ? )
- what does C2 do ? from Q2 to ground. ( in LTSpice it reduces substantially the output voltage, or does not work at all,. depending on the self oscialltin freq ( increasing Cx would make it work. )
- R5 and LED 2 are some sort of " protection " for the mosfet ? ( I added a zener diode from gate to source to keep the voltages in range and not kill the mosfet, I think I put it correctly there.
- Coil I have built long time ago, around 1000 turns 0.12mm wire . 14x3 cm plastic tube.
Please explain to me what these components really do, and maybe help me improve it ?.
Thank you , Bruno!.
Also sorry if I posted in the wrong section .