Tesla coils > Vacuum Tube Tesla Coils (VTTC)

750 mm Plasma Tubes and Vacuum Tube Tesla Coil

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Mads Barnkob:
I bought two 750 mm long and 70 mm diameter plasma tubes from Barracuda Glass by Chris Burak. These lovely borosilicate glass tubes are filled with a mix of iodine, argon and krypton, for a bright blue glow. The Tesla coil used, is one of my first Tesla coils ever built. The Kaizer VTTC1: https://kaizerpowerelectronics.dk/tesla-coils/kaizer-vttc-i/

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alan sailer:
Very cool. It is a trip to see the tesla coil interact with a plasma tube.

A few comments. First, be super careful with any arcs to the tube towards te sealed ends. The plasma from
too high of power can punch holes through thinner glass. I killed a smaller plasma tube this way.

Second, I don't think you will need as much power as 200-300 watts for the two tubes. I've run tubes this
size with a PVM400 power supply. The supply has an 1 amp fuse and runs at 110AC. Blue iodine tubes run
on the low side power required. I'd guess fifty watts will be more than enough. I was never curious enough to do
detailed measurements of power so I could be wrong.*

Red need the most power of my tubes. And green are fairly low power but require a high starting
voltage.

Frequency does make a difference in a tubes appearance. In my opinion it's usually not a dramatic difference
but it is worth exploring.

Cheers.

* Got back from a bike ride, broke out the AC ampmeter and measured about 0.3 amps to fill the tube, maxed out at 0.6 amps.
The tube is an neon/xenon/iodine tube similar to yours. That would 30-70 watts. Adding more power to the tube (ie above 30 watts) didn't
really change the appearance of the tube to first order. All that said there is no harm to building a more powerful flyback driver.
Some day you might get a bigger tube :-)
 

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