Hello!

This post is just to provide some documentation of my old SSTC, which I completed about a year ago.


The SSTC was based on this coil: http://4hv.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?172138
And the finalised circuit looks like this:


The driver circuit is a direct copy of the coil linked, except that the 555 interrupter has been replaced with a simple Audio one that I designed. Some minor faults include the fact that I used a comparator as an op amp (I believe this causes some oscillations, which reduce audio quality). And the current limiting circuit has a small fault, which means that higher input voltages reduce the operating current. This was later modified with a capacitor across the current sensing resistor, to allow more peak current (dodgy, but it works ).
The driver circuit was etched on a hand drawn PCB using a permanent marker, and ammonium persulfate etchant:


And the case was made from 1.5mm aluminium sheet, bent in a vice (with a rubber mallet). For the interrupter I drew the PCB design in MS paint (never could get used to PCB CAD programs... ), and used the toner transfer method to etch the PCB:


The secondary was wound on an automated winding jig (unfortunately I never took a photo of the robot, before it was disassembled), with wire from one of the brake mechanisms in a laser printer. The coil is 90x30mm and has approximately 600 turns.

The primary coil was originally allowed to touch the secondary, until I noticed the racing arcs between the 2 coils , at which point I made the small isolating blocks out of perspex.


The final result was a very small SSTC capable of low quality audia, and about 1-inch sparks with 50 VAC input (the faulty current limiter causes sparks to reduce in length above this voltage).



So that was my first SSTC... now back to the DRSSTC
Feel free to ask if you have any questions (I probably left some stuff out...)
- sjsimmo