NanoTess – The Smallest Electronic Tesla Coils

Nano Tess

 NANO Tess is an extremely small solid state teslacoil, designed to run from a battery supply and to be as small as possible.

Primary: 2T 1mm enamelled copper wire.
Secondary: 1.25" tall, 500T enamelled wire former 20mm diameter. wound with 0.08mm Wire from a 0.75VA 12V transformer secondary. 
Topload: 13mm diameter cupboard knob, sawn in half.

Nano Tess runs from a 12-18V supply, and used two half bridge mosfet drivers to give a full bridge drive. There are NO power mosfets.

Current Circuit (Subject to change.)

 

First light, running from 18V,

At this point it wouldn't work with its top load..

After some circuit changes, I blew two driver IC's due to the interrupter circuit stopping, both chips got very hot and died. I've found that the coil will run with a topload, but the breakout needs to be a long way away from it, (25mm or more) to give a spark,as the field stretches for at least 20mm up from the topload.

Nano Tess, complete with driver and battery..

I can actually walk around with it running , COOL!!!...

Close up of Nano Tess's output, about 10mm to air.

Input power 12V @ 170mA..

Nano Tess II

Jimmy Mitchel a coiler in the US, built a coil, which was actually larger than Nano Tess, but his driver was much smaller, So the title "Worlds smallest SSTC" passed to him, but I couldn't let that stand. So in order to retreve the title. NANOTESS II was born.
Basically its the same as Nano tess, but built to fit inside a 20mm conduit, the secondary is essentially the same, (I shaved off 1/4" for good measure) and to keep the size down I made the primary inside the secondary. Due to the smaller primary dimentions I have increased the primary turns to 2.5

Current Circuit (Subject to change .) (without the protection diodes on the output of the drivers, I couldn't fit them in)

Spec: Total Height 2.5" (63mm), diameter 0.78" (20mm) Primary 2.5T internal, Secondary 0.78"(20mm) 300T approx. of 0.07mm enameled copper wire.

 

Nanotess II showing how the electronics and the primary fit into the secondary.

The two IXY drivers are bolted to a 15mm wide brass strip that acts as a heat sink.
The rest of the electronics is wired heath-robinson style to save on space. On the rear of the heatsink is the other IXY driver and a 100uF decoupling cap with a 0.1uf bypass cap. The primary coil is soldered directly onto the IXY driver, and coupled via a 0.1uF cap

The Secondary is wound from 0.07mm wire from a 75va 9v mains transformer, it is 0.78" (20mm) long.

It is wound so that when the driver is inside, the primary coil is under the first few turns of the secondary.

The complete unit is only 2.5" long.

NanoTess II First light..

The Smallest SSTC is back home.. (until it was beaten by jimmy...)

So...  NanotessIII ->->->->->->

Nano Tess III

Jimmy Mitchel a coiler in the US, Did it again, and beat the size of NanoTessII so, NanoTessIII.

Secondary 330T 0.7mm enamelled wire on a 20mm diameter former
Primary 1.5T 0.5mm Hookup wire (internal to the secondary) about 15mm diameter.
Driver Half Bridge, in DRSSTC type configuration.

Nanotess III showing just how small it is. The driver fits in the black section under the secondary coil. <10mm tall.

The driver , view from the top of the coil looking down.

The Secondary is wound from 0.07mm wire from a 75va 9v mains transformer, it is 0.78" (20mm) long.

It is wound so that when the driver is inside, the primary coil is under the first few turns of the secondary.

The complete unit is only 2.5" long. The Yellow 0.1 is actually adding 4mm to the height of the driver.. I may even change it for a tantulam and cut down the former some more.. :-)...

NanoTess III, So happy to be alive, it's shaking its breakout..

NanoTess III-1/3, It was decreed that putting the electronics inside the secondary was allowed, so I've chopped off about 9mm of former and pushed the electronics up into the coil
this makes the size 22mm x 20mm diameter.

The Smallest SSTC is back home..(Again)

Unless you know different !!

 File:https://www.extremeelectronics.co.uk/old/coils/nt/nanotess-combined.php