Information Unlimited Tesla Coil Kit - long post

[RobertH3]

I bought and built this a couple years ago - pre BAR. After the NARAM in Muncie, it was rockets. Always wanted to do a coil and finally had the time.
If you build one, I highly recommend a proven spark gap coil over a solid state one - easier and less costly. The solid state coils make huge (feet in diameter) blooms of fuzzy purple brush discharges, but short them and your expensive IGBT transistors go kaboom. Spark gap coils are durable and LOUD. And shorting the top load is fun.

This is an Information Unlimited BTC-30 Tesla coil. It has a 120V - 7200V neon sign transformer, standard tungsten electrode spark gap, and all parts. Tuned to 460Khz - this is why Ham radio people hate them
I actually got to talk to Bob Ianinni of Information Unlimited before he passed away. A legend. He invented the bug zapper, left college, made a million bucks selling the patent, and then founded the most safety-unfriendly and coolest company in existence. First it was Amazing Devices in the back of popular mechanics. It ended as Information Unlimited. You can read about him. Rail guns, coil guns, pulsed mag field generators that can crush a metal can waist down without touching it, plasma globe kits, a 50 watt CO2 laser, and an ultrasonic barking dog stopper. And M80 and cherry bomb plans. I have an actual Information Unlimited plan for a garage particle accelerator that according to Bob, would split atoms. Build it? Don't know. Having the plan. Freaking priceless : )
When he passed away, the company went away. Shame, I wanted to buy their 10,000 watt 240V BTC70 coil for the 10 foot lightning bolts.

https://www.smith-heald.com/obituaries/Robert-E-Iannini?obId=27660790

https://www.diyphysics.com/2023/09/26/in-memoriam-robert-bob-iannini-1938-2023/


There is a pic of the kit freshly built and some pics of it running. Based on the arc I was able to draw with the grounding bar, when tuned well it was running at about 240KV and at about 460Khz. The high frequency lets you do the compact fluorescent light bulb trick. This is not without pain : )

The neon bulb was particularly cool - looking with the discharge off the top of the bulb. With a fluorescent tube you can do a credible lightsaber imitation.

DANGER: the primary coil (copper tubing) is at 7200V and 60Hz and will KILL you. The top load is at 240KV and very low current, but it still hurts. Hold a metal object if you want to energize yourself. Otherwise you'll have little carbon burn spots on your hand. Don't ask

A coil is a pair of LC resonant circuits coupled along the axis of the coils. No free energy, it is very inefficient. If you wonder about the mystique, imagine yourself seeing this violet fire in 1899 in a parlor. Beyond magic. And the fact you can light a gas tube at a distance with no wires. The transmission energy is basically a noisy AM radio carrier wave. You can hear a coil on a transistor radio. Yes, he beat Marconi cold. All you have to do is key a coil with Morse and have a receiver.

This is a highly recommended project - I had tons of entertainment with it, but it does wear off.
If you build one, LOCK it away from children. If they touch the copper tubing while it's running...

The coil is no longer available since the company is gone. PM me if you are interested in the plans. I know a source for some decent small high voltage transformers. The most difficult part to source is the high voltage capacitor.

Cheers / Robert

 

[OzHybrid]

Nice capacitor bank in Bob Iannini link. EMP generator build anyone.....?

 

[Tractionengines]

Back when I was doing this we built the HV Caps!!!

A roll of aluminum trim stock, cut into 2 and deburred and smoothed edges. (Many hours) Sheets of plastic film, cut to size slightly bigger than your aluminum. (There were calculations for area, vs insulator thickness to estimate your withstand voltage, capacitance, frequency range, current, etc.)

After you added terminal wires, and rolled the film and sheets together being ABSOLUTELY SURE there was no contamination. You tie-wrapped it and slid it into a PVC Pipe. Then filled it with mineral oil.

You took a month to alternate between pulling as much vacuum as you could, then return it to atmospheric pressure and top up the oil. When you were sure there was no more air in the windings, you'd connect your neon sign transformer to it thru a veriac. And start conditioning it by bringing the voltage level up a little at a time. Usually a few more small air bubbles would escape. [Catastrophic failure was always an enlightening experience.] Conditioning was ALWAYS done outside with some fire fighting equipment at the ready.]

All said and done, you'd start building 5-10, and end up with 3-5 that were usable. (For a while.)

Ahhh, memories. Wish I had photos, but alas never took them.

 

[miket6000]

Back when I was doing this we built the HV Caps!!!

A roll of aluminum trim stock, cut into 2 and deburred and smoothed edges. (Many hours) Sheets of plastic film, cut to size slightly bigger than your aluminum. (There were calculations for area, vs insulator thickness to estimate your withstand voltage, capacitance, frequency range, current, etc.)

After you added terminal wires, and rolled the film and sheets together being ABSOLUTELY SURE there was no contamination. You tie-wrapped it and slid it into a PVC Pipe. Then filled it with mineral oil.

You took a month to alternate between pulling as much vacuum as you could, then return it to atmospheric pressure and top up the oil. When you were sure there was no more air in the windings, you'd connect your neon sign transformer to it thru a veriac. And start conditioning it by bringing the voltage level up a little at a time. Usually a few more small air bubbles would escape. [Catastrophic failure was always an enlightening experience.] Conditioning was ALWAYS done outside with some fire fighting equipment at the ready.]

All said and done, you'd start building 5-10, and end up with 3-5 that were usable. (For a while.)

Ahhh, memories. Wish I had photos, but alas never took them.

Nice coil, I went all in and designed my own DRSSTC including driver. You're absolutely right about the IGBTs though, I've been through $100s worth of them during development.

Here's my one running on YouTube

 

[RobertH3]

I have a DRSSTC I haven't finished yet - big sucker. Need a top load for it. That is an unpleasant story with a vendor (NOT Information Unlimited, they were always awesome & helpful). On caps, I've also seen them made with distilled water & bottles for a period coil. That is old school but they aren't permanent either. Distributed multicaps are also an expensive option.

My buddy and I built the Information Unlimited 4 foot High Freq Jacob's Ladder. You had to hand-make the high voltage high freq. transformer for that one. Similar process to the capacitors above. Vacuum potted with 120.00 worth of 3M 2-part Silicone. Wendy and I painfully hand-wound the secondaries.
Amazing how much air comes out of a part when you vacuum pot. He paid for it, I built it in modules, and he's never finished it due to worries. I am most proud of that runs at 100% arc-free transformer. That was a tough, must be perfect the first time project. I wasted a lot of Remington coil wire. I sent Bob Ianinni's assistant a pic of it and he said "sh*t I think that is going to work!" If you mess it up, you lose everything except for the pair of Ferrite Cores.

The chopper circuit and transformer are built on G10 - perfect for HV : ) The chopper is a simple DRSSTC circuit but tough to build integrated like it is. The Fan cools it and also provides a slight breeze under the arc to start it up the ladder. That is most important to prevent hang-ups and melted electrodes.

I still miss Information Unlimited.

 

[prfesser]

Related anecdotes: I used a hand-held Tesla coil, or "Electron Zot Gun" as we called it, to demonstrate emission spectra of gases for general chemistry. I think it produced about 50kv:

Start by zapping a gas discharge tube with a long spark. Then turn it off, grip the metal point tightly in the hand, turn it back on....carefully; do not touch the metal screw, only the plastic knob. Eyes popped open when I'd touch the gas discharge tube and it would light up.

The ICP we used in grad school had an Electron Zot Gun built in, to start the plasma. New grad student (not me) examining the instrument, touched the tip. "What does this do?" Research advisor, slightly sadistic: "It does THIS!" and punched the zap button.

Hilarity did not ensue.