Project objectives:

• The total cost of materials should be less than One-Tesla’s drsstc
• Should produce arcs at least 1 foot long
• Should be able to run for at least 30 minutes at a time without overheating
• Should be able to play music at a decent quality (you can make out vocals and distinct instruments)
• The arcs should respond to the audio. Louder = longer arcs. No sound = no arcs. Many instruments/notes = many arcs.
• Should be entertaining for an average person
• Should be easily upgradeable to a drsstc (just switch capacitor) Therefore requires:
• Soft switching (a flip-flop must be implemented)
• Operates on low duty cycle
• Should feature an interrupter to send fiber optic signals to the TC. Which will:
• Be capable of receiving audio signals from a laptop or electric guitar
• Should have volume/gain control and/or a duty cycle control (the output is a pwm representation of the input audio)
• Should have an optional shut off to save power/prevent overheating when there is no audio
• Should signal operator if the audio input is overloaded, and clip signal.
• The Tesla Coil should be portable (can carry reasonably with two arms) and easy to set up.

Inspiration and Resources used:

• Steve Wards sstc
• Loneoceans’ Laboratories SSTC v2
• Great Scott’s tesla coil project
• EasyEDA
• JavaTC