Since I’ll be primarily using my oneTesla to play music, I wanted a top facing breakout (so the sparks will shoot up, instead of out to the side). Also, I wanted something more professional looking than a stick of metal taped to the top of the toroid. Here is the final product on the top of my toroid:
You can visit [ this post ] to see a video of it in action.
I used the lathe to get the general shape I wanted:
Then turned it to even up the 15 degree angle:
And this is my original 1″ diameter aluminum stock. I tapped it for the 14-20 bolt on the top of my Tesla coil that normally has a wing nut to hold the stamped toroid together, so the whole thing just screws onto the top.
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I’m curious how this is working years later.
Would putting the breakout point directly connected to the toroid (Secondary) not bypass the capacitance benefits?
I like the look, if it works, without damaging parts, I do believe I’ll make one.
It probably does change the capacitance of the toroid slightly, but I didn’t notice a difference between just having a “wire” breakout point and this one.
The coil worked for several years of light usage, but I did blow out my IGBT’s while running the tesla coil for over an hour at a festival. However, lots of people do this when running the OneTesla without rest periods and overheating it, so I don’t *think* this breakout point contributed to that much.