Tesla coil picking up energy from the GDT

Here is a small 24VDC solid state tesla coil I am currently working on, I noticed that with the power removed from the bridge the coil can still light up a flourescent tube.

Only power applied is to the drivers, drivers and bridge are separated by GDT.

There is measured 17VDC on the bridge, FETs keep the heatsinks handwarm. What is happening is the 12V signal from the GDT is capacitively coupled through the MOSFET and rectified by its internal diode, and therefore it sees the 12V drive signal as a AC source and rectified it results in 17VDC on the bridge.

This eventually killed the MOSFET driver ICs, as they were actually delivering all the current for also driving the bridge.

This coil is now known as Kaizer SSTC III : http://kaizerpowerelectronics.dk/tesla-coils/kaizer-sstc-iii/

Category:

Education

Tags:

• sstc
• tesla
• coil