A solid state Tesla coil works by switching the primary coil at a resonant frequency. This frequency varies due to the height of the coil, the top load, and the environment [14]. Thus, a fixed frequency oscillator is not ideal.
The used driver changes its frequency based on what the antenna receives from the Tesla coil. Antenna feedback is designed to capture feedback from the secondary to keep the circuit resonating. Because we use feedback to provide the signal to the half bridge, the coil is always in tune. Using schottky diodes (diodes with a low forward voltage drop, and hence, fast) to clamp the signal to ground and +Vcc, to ensure the drive is not destroyed; a square signal to the driver input is obtained.
• Gate drive. This part of the circuit combines and amplifies the interrupter and feedback signals to drive the gate drive transformer (figure 9). The circuit works by generating a square wave from the respective outputs of the inverting and non-inverting MOSFET drivers and they operate in phase.
Proceedings of the
Sustainable Research and Innovation(SRI) Conference
6 - 8 May 2015
26