Off on an adventure

Why haven't I been building anything?  I was off on an Adventure.

New capacitor for Yottacoil

Another CPW, another round of tesla coiling.  Last time the primary capacitor caught on fire, so I helped Michael and Austin cobble together a new one out of the Eurofarad caps the coil originally used.  I designed some bus bars and MITERS undergrads got them waterjet cut for us.

216 M6 socket head cap screws and 36 crimps later:

Successfully ran 2 evenings with 0 capacitor fires and 1 boost converter fire:

More Coiling

Once again Mike's tesla coil worked flawlessly - at least until someone tripped over the extension cord powering a fan cooling the primary capacitor bank.  We didn't notice until the capacitor bank burst into flames.

 

CPW Coiling

 Austin and I turned on Mike's tesla coil in the parking lot outside MITERS, for MIT's Campus Preview Weekend.  One precharge switch and resistor got toasted, but otherwise it ran flawlessly for two nights in a row: