1. Slayer Exciter V1

< Intro >

This is the first time making a tesla coil that utilizes a slayer exciter circuit, and it can be powered by a 5-volt source such as a USB source. In short, a slayer exciter is an air-core transformer that is similar to the tesla coil in principle, in that it steps up the low voltage, to a high voltage on the end. However, what makes it different from all the other tesla coils is how it achieves that kind of power.

<How it works>

Since the slayer exciter is another form of a solid state tesla coil, it does not use a typical spark gap, but rather uses a transistor to do the switching at a much higher rate. All this switching is reliant whenever the base of the transistor is receiving the current or not, so as the current flows through the resistor and into the base, the transistor switches on, and the current can flow to the primary coil and into the collector of the transistor, and out of the emitter of the transistor. Due to the electricity taking the least resistance as soon as the transistor is switched on, the base doesn't receive the current, and so it switches off, and the cycle repeats, generating oscillators to the primary coil, and eventually to the secondary coil. 

In each cycle as the primary coil is energized, that coil energizes the secondary coil, and seeing that the secondary coil has a naturally occurring parasitic capacitance on the output, it will then automatically "tune" itself based on the oscillations provided, thus allowing the secondary coil to bring the voltage to a higher voltage on the end of the coil. It basically works similar to a tank circuit, which features a coil and a capacitor connected in parallel, and is used to generate signals once they resonate with each other.

<Parts>

It uses a few components for the Tesla coil: a silicon diode, an NPN transistor, a resistor meant for the base of the transistor, and the 2 sets of coils (Primary and Secondary). With this amount of parts, it may seem simple enough to drive a coil for outputting high voltage but based on the explanation above, that's how it can achieve such voltages as a result.

<Close View>

As mentioned, since the slayer exciter is like a solid state tesla coil, it was a more efficient way of generating high voltage than the traditional spark-gap tesla coil since again, it relies more solely on the transistor and switches much more than the spark gap when it oscillates. As seen above, even when driving just 5 volts from USB, it has managed to create a spark, and instead of shocking you, it just burns through.

<Full view of the Tesla Coil>

Like all the tesla coils, this one generates a magnetic field powerful enough to power things wirelessly, albeit very inefficiently, and if not handled right, can mess up sensitive electronics, so use extra precaution when building/using the slayer exciter. Here is the video below that shows its wireless power capabilities along with the circuit.

 

Tesla coil w/ wireless capabilities.

<Slayer Exciter circuit>