The Tesla coil, patented by legendary inventor Nikola Tesla in 1891, is a sort of resonant transformer circuit able to producing sparks of high-voltage alternating-current electrical energy. They don’t have many sensible makes use of at the moment past novelty, however they had been generally utilized in spark-gap radio transmitters within the early twentieth century. The sparks generated by a Tesla coil would emit sturdy bursts of radio waves and operators might encode data by patterns of pulses, much like a wired telegraph. However these sparks are tough to regulate, which is why Mirko Pavleski designed this Arduino-based “staccato” controller for Tesla coils.

The aim of Pavleski’s machine is to realize higher management over a Tesla coil, with the objective of producing longer sparks with much less energy. It does so by offering very granular management over the size of every pulse, its depth, and the interval between pulses. A Tesla coil requires loads of voltage to create a spark, however little or no present. That signifies that the entire energy wanted to supply a spark is minimal and comparatively secure to supervise with a microcontroller.

On this case, Pavleski used an Arduino Nano to handle the circuit. A management panel lets the person modify the parameters, then the Arduino does the remaining. Energy is available in from mains by way of a 12V transformer and the Arduino controls the present going from that to the Tesla coil with an ordinary triac, with a big capacitor offering some filtering. Virtually the whole lot else comes all the way down to the Arduino’s programming, which in the end determines the traits of the electrical energy equipped to the Tesla coil. As a result of that’s going by a triac, the Arduino can “dim” the voltage, versus merely toggling it like a relay would.

It will let Pavleski carry out extra in-depth experiments with Tesla coils.