tinyTesla Finished!

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tinyTesla Finished!

Postby KarlFlick » Sun Mar 15, 2015 11:15 pm

My 12 year old son and I built our tinyTesla, finished today.
We used about 8 coats of varnish, but we now know that the varnish we used was too thin. After some packing tape adjustments and fixing some hot-spots with a glue gun, we finally got it working-ish. It will go back into the shop tomorrow for some additional insulating.

What a BLAST!

Watch on youtube.com
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Re: tinyTesla Finished!

Postby Paranord » Mon Mar 16, 2015 4:53 pm

I bought a very thick varnish and used lots of coats. I'm still getting arcing.

I like your electrical tape fix.
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Re: tinyTesla Finished!

Postby Fiddy » Mon Mar 16, 2015 5:13 pm

Mmmm i fear the coupling is too high and its arcing over.

There is 2 ways to decrease the coupling.

1. Engage less of the secondary winding with the primary (move the primary down lower so it covers less of the secondary).

2. Increase the diameter of the primary winding (kind of impractical and requires more primary wire length).
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Re: tinyTesla Finished!

Postby KarlFlick » Mon Mar 16, 2015 5:37 pm

Fiddy wrote:Mmmm i fear the coupling is too high and its arcing over.

There is 2 ways to decrease the coupling.

1. Engage less of the secondary winding with the primary (move the primary down lower so it covers less of the secondary).

2. Increase the diameter of the primary winding (kind of impractical and requires more primary wire length).


Thanks! Great advice! I'll try step 1 next.
I also ordered some Kapton tape, and will replace my cruddy packing tape with that at the same time.

I have a feeling that this just became a really expensive hobby -- I'm already sneaking covetous glances at the TS... :)
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Re: tinyTesla Finished!

Postby KarlFlick » Mon Mar 16, 2015 5:56 pm

Paranord wrote:I bought a very thick varnish and used lots of coats. I'm still getting arcing.

I like your electrical tape fix.


When I pulled off the first try with packing tape, it broke the secondary coil wire, so I had to unwind one wind on the bottom to get enough to reattach. (Varnish was not too much of a problem, but the tape was too sticky.)

I put the electrical tape over the ends of the secondary coil wire -- it doesn't stick as much to the wire as packing tape, and I figured I'd probably end up having to pull off packing tape again, so I did electrical over the loose ends, and then packing tape over that. Probably not as airtight electrically, but I hopefully won't break the wire next time I re-tape or varnish or whatever I end up doing, AND if I have to get to the wire ends, I think the electrical tape will come off without breaking anything... Plus it kind of looks nice.
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Re: tinyTesla Finished!

Postby Fiddy » Tue Mar 17, 2015 12:01 am

KarlFlick wrote:
Fiddy wrote:Mmmm i fear the coupling is too high and its arcing over.

There is 2 ways to decrease the coupling.

1. Engage less of the secondary winding with the primary (move the primary down lower so it covers less of the secondary).

2. Increase the diameter of the primary winding (kind of impractical and requires more primary wire length).


Thanks! Great advice! I'll try step 1 next.
I also ordered some Kapton tape, and will replace my cruddy packing tape with that at the same time.

I have a feeling that this just became a really expensive hobby -- I'm already sneaking covetous glances at the TS... :)


No worries dude, it can be, these kits a pretty good for the price.


KarlFlick wrote:
Paranord wrote:I bought a very thick varnish and used lots of coats. I'm still getting arcing.

I like your electrical tape fix.


When I pulled off the first try with packing tape, it broke the secondary coil wire, so I had to unwind one wind on the bottom to get enough to reattach. (Varnish was not too much of a problem, but the tape was too sticky.)

I put the electrical tape over the ends of the secondary coil wire -- it doesn't stick as much to the wire as packing tape, and I figured I'd probably end up having to pull off packing tape again, so I did electrical over the loose ends, and then packing tape over that. Probably not as airtight electrically, but I hopefully won't break the wire next time I re-tape or varnish or whatever I end up doing, AND if I have to get to the wire ends, I think the electrical tape will come off without breaking anything... Plus it kind of looks nice.



A good tip ive learnt from winding secondary coils myself is, when youve taped over the secondary and want to remove it properly, pull the tape off in a diagonal not across the winding length as it can unsettle the windings.

Heres a crude paint diagram.

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j125/ ... 20TAPE.png
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Re: tinyTesla Finished!

Postby KarlFlick » Tue Mar 17, 2015 10:12 am

That's a great tip. In my case, I do have quite a few coats of varnish directly on the secondary, so for me, the tape peeling was only a problem at the ends where the wire is loose. Electrical tape seems not to bond to the wire as much as packing tape did. (And I ended up having to unwind some of the secondary to get enough wire to reconnect.)

The packing tape didn't seem to pull off varnish, so that's good, at least. The way I have it now, I think I can un-tape all the way back to varnished state, without disturbing the ends, and then pull off the electrical tape and not have to worry about breaking the loose wire again.

All of these great pro-tips and experience will be great for the next time round too!
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Re: tinyTesla Finished!

Postby kastnerd » Fri Mar 20, 2015 9:40 am

I got my tinyTesla, I was thinking of applying 5 or more thin coats of varnish. But I want to be sure I mask off enough and not mess up the wire. Its a bit unclear how much loses wire at the top / bottom is needed when doing the first step of varnishing it. Or should it basically be varnished to the edge.
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Re: tinyTesla Finished!

Postby KarlFlick » Fri Mar 20, 2015 11:43 pm

kastnerd wrote:I got my tinyTesla, I was thinking of applying 5 or more thin coats of varnish. But I want to be sure I mask off enough and not mess up the wire. Its a bit unclear how much loses wire at the top / bottom is needed when doing the first step of varnishing it. Or should it basically be varnished to the edge.


5 thin coats will probably not be nearly enough. I did somewhere around 8 thin coats, and there may as well not have been ANY varnish -- couldn't get a spark off the top until I then added about 4 layers of packing tape. Even that wasn't enough to insulate fully. Varnish until your local hardware store is out of stock!

You only need enough on top to reach up to the very top and into the center nut of the end cap, leave an inch or so so that you can slide the ring terminal over the top bolt.

On the bottom, you only need enough to reach the smaller bottom ring terminal.

A little extra is good in case you have to make adjustments, you can just wind it in the direction of the winding.

I'd strongly recommend you do a bit of a "mock" assembly before you get to far along just to be sure how everything will fit together when finished. And read through the whole manual at least once first. Here are notes on some things that some of us ran into along the way:
viewtopic.php?f=39&t=1849


Read step 12 and 13 all the way through carefully before you varnish, and that should give you a pretty good picture of where things will end up.

IMPORTANT NOTES: in step 12, it never tells you to solder the bottom end of the wire from the secondary coil to the smaller (bottom) ring terminal, but that's what you should do, leaving enough wire (and a little extra) to reach the ring terminal that will be screwed into the base.

ALSO: You should mount the hardware to the heat sink, line the circuit board up with the screw mounts, and temporarily position the pin connector for the primary coil in the circuit board, and then position the secondary coil where the screws will go, because it only all fits together one way, and when it comes time to wind your primary, you'll need to know which slot the connector is supposed to fit through. It would probably help to put a small mark to help you keep this all lined up as you go back and put everything together.
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Re: tinyTesla Finished!

Postby kastnerd » Mon Mar 23, 2015 11:37 am

Thanks Karl. Would you apply any varnish to the wire after gluing it in place after soldering it? Would lacquer be stronger?
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