Howdy. If you're looking to make a
do-it-yourself Slayer Exciter or you are simply interested in knowing how they
work, you've come to the right place. If you don't know what a Slayer Exciter
is, you might think it's some sort of hard rock cover band from the 80s... It's not that. It's a Tesla Coil capable of producing extremely high voltages. This video will cover everything, yes, EVERYTHING that you could ever want to
know about a Slayer Exciter circuit. everything from the physics to how to
build it. First, I'll be going over the commonly used schematic for a Slayer Exciter and explain the physics behind it. Then I'll demo the construction of
the Slayer Exciter for you with a step-by-step tutorial. I follow that up
with a demo of the circuit and operation to show off some of its physical
implications. Finally, I have a few ideas to make it far more powerful! So feel
free to jump ahead to any of these time stamps or the ones down in the description. Now without any further ado, let's get into it. Let's get into it let's start by looking
at the most commonly schematic which I imagine is what most of you are
interested in. The schematic may look a little confusing if you're new to
electronics so let's break it down. This symbol here represents a battery -
usually 9 Volts and up for this type of circuit. Here we have a resistor with
a rating of 47 Kilo Ohms though it could be a little high or lower.
This symbol here represents a transistor, which is a switch that can be turned on
and off electronically. And these loops here represent coils. Although we don't
draw it that way the taller coil is actually inside of the shorter coil. So, the setup is what is called a "resonant transformer." A transformer is a means of
stepping up an AC voltage on the primary coil to either a higher or lower voltage
on the secondary - or output coil. When current goes around a coil it creates a magnetic field through that coil. This is called an "electromagnet." Now, the reason that one coil can create a current wirelessly in another coil is thanks to
a physics principle known as Lenz's law The concept behind
Lenz's law is that a coil of wire will resist the change in a magnetic field.
Thus, when the transistor is closed allowing current to flow through the
primary coil, for a short time, since the current change is not instantaneous, the
magnetic field is increasing from zero to some field strength. While it is
increasing the secondary coil will resist that change with a magnetic field
in the opposing direction - meaning that a current will start to flow in the
opposing direction in the secondary coil. This means that the direction that you
wind the coils does matter and you want them both to wind in the same direction
but we'll touch on that again in a minuet. We want the current created in
the secondary coil to be tied into the gate of the transistor which means that
every time the secondary coil goes high it pulls the primary coil well and this
will cause the circuit to begin oscillating all by itself. The gate is
switched by the current through the resistor from the battery closing the
switch and allowing current to flow through the primary coil. When it induces
a current in the secondary coil a counter current turns off the transistor,
thus opening the circuit for the cycle to begin again.
The beauty of the Slayer Exciter circuit is that because of this the frequency is
self-regulating. What I mean by that is that the circuit resonates. Think of
resonance as pushing somebody on a swing set. You don't just want to push them
whenever. The best time to push somebody is when they reach their peak. This is where maximum power can be transferred into the system. Likewise the Slayer Exciter circuit is designed to push more current just as the magnetic field is
collapsing - just like a swing set - and this allows it to come very close to the
resonant frequency of the circuit. Wow... where did all those Saturday nights go? Now that we've got all that pesky science out of the way, we can finally start building our Slayer Exciter. So here's how I did it. So here's all the
components that we're going to need in order to build this thing: we're going to
need a power source - this could simply be a 9-Volt battery or a power supply would
probably work best, a 47 Kilo Ohm resistor, a TIP31C NPN transistor, and
for the primary and secondary coils, I use 10
gauge and 30 gauge wire respectively. Once we have all of our components
sitting in front of us we're going to need to connect them together here's a
diagram that shows how all of the things that I'm using connect together. *Building Montage* So I finished up soldering my board and
it looks like this now. Before you use it double-check it to make sure that you've
assembled it correctly otherwise you're going to find that all the components are gonna start blowing up like a bowl of beans in the Microwave. Now that I have the PCB board securely attached to the plate: next, it's time for the
secondary coil tower. To make the secondary coil tower, I wound 30 gauge (AWG)
wire around a 1/2 inch diameter PVC pipe. Hey! If you need a pickup line, try this: "Like 30 gauge wire you're fine." (Door Slams) But I'm a famous youtuber! (Snip) I'm alone... Since my secondary coil has about a thousand
turns of wire and my primary coil has about 4, that means my voltage step up
factor is 250 times the input voltage - meaning if my input voltage is 20
Volts, that means that my output voltage would be a whopping 5,000 Volts. I taped
off the end so that the entire thing doesn't unravel. Finally I sandpaper the edges so that I can actually connect them into the rest
of the circuit. *Buiid Montage* Next is to attach the base of the coil to the gate of the
transistor and to do that I'll just put these matched wires side by side and use
a wire cap. There we go. For my primary coil, I've wrapped it around the PVC pipe so I can get approximately the right dimensions now I made more windings than
I'm ever going need so that I can clip onto it at different points and vary how
many windings I have depending on where I clip on. So, where I have it here is at
about three and a half turns on the primary coil. I find that this is the
best compromise between stepping up the voltage and having a strong enough
magnetic field to move sufficient power. But be sure to experiment around with that
yourself because that's just what works best for me. Finally, we need a transistor
to oscillate. A lot of people use the 2N2222 transistors but i find that they're
just a little too small for this kind of application, so my preference is the TIP31C transistor. These are pretty high-powered relatively speaking and
they have a very fast switching speed. *Build Montage* I bet we could get a better look if I taped it down. (Crackle and Pop) Well, that's unfortunate thankfully
replacement transistors are pretty cheap. So this begs the question why all the
transistors heating up and burning out the answer is actually quite simple: As
we mentioned earlier in the video, the secondary coil is only drawing power
from the primary coil while the voltage is changing or while the current is going from zero to some value. But if you take a look at the waveform of this
circuit off the oscilloscope, you see that the current is only changing for a
small amount of time and then it plateaus. While it's plateaued that is
power being wasted which means that that's going into generating all the
heat and inefficiencies that your circuit is experiencing. So how do you
get around this? Well, I just put a whole lot of transistors in parallel with one
another that way every time I add a new one it divides the current by how many
there are and therefore each individual transistor heats up a lot less. Let me
show you what happens when I plug the mega-transistor into the slot here on
the board. (Tape peel) And now that our input circuit can handle a lot more power, we can crank up the voltage even higher. And this our new output: (Electro-static buzz) "UNLIMITED POWER!" ... and now our entree is done, and we can
sprinkle on assorted electronics to taste. Alright. We've made this Tesla coil
but now what can we do with it? Well, I think you're in for a shock. (Crowd boos) I know my electrical puns are always so current. (Crowd boos) Hey! I can keep going! You'll
laugh until it Hertz (Crowd boos loudly) Well, I tried. Bad electrical puns aside,
may I present to you the Slayer Exciter... "Tesla coils are a pathway to many
abilities some would consider to be... unnatural" Although we cannot see it,
there is a strong alternating electric field that can knock electrons out of
the Mercury (Hg) vapour inside this fluorescent lamp and, when the field
reverses and the electrons come back to the mercury atom, a (UV) photon is emitted. Now,
although this photon isn't in the visible range that we can see it
interacts with a phosphor - that white dust coating the inside of fluorescent
lamps - and this causes it to glow in the visible range. In fact you can see a
similar effect with the noble gases inside of any sort of incandescent bulb.
And no this is not giving you cancer. There is a lot of energy here. I know
it's hard to believe considering how small of an input power we have, but what
you see on the output is actually the air being ionized and turning to another
state of matter called a "plasma." It just so happens that plasma is crazy hot! But instead of just letting all of this charge bleed off into the environment and ionize the air, there is a way that we can allow the charge to build up so
we can get an even greater power output How? Well we can slap a top-load on top
of the Slayer Exciter like this: By putting a top load on top of the Slayer
Exciter you can allow more charge to build up which means that you can get more
powerful arcs. So then I'll just put it inside the top-load and simply tape it
down with a piece of electrical tape and that's it. Our top load is now installed. More than just giving a Tesla coil it's distinctive look, a top-load actually adds some functionality to the Tesla coil by allowing it to hold more charge and dissipate more. And of course it- OUCH! Uh... it transfers a
little bit more power to so don't touch any metal that you're holding near this.
Grrr - that was my pinky, man! This top-load presents me with the perfect opportunity
to test something I've been meaning to show y'all. So if I set this on top of
the top-load such that now I have each of the ends of the wire pointing away
from each other like this, it should create a spiral motion around the top
load. Let's see... (Yep) I used to think that it was the
electrons being shot out of the ends of the wire that caused it to rotate like
this, but upon thinking about it further I realize that electrons have almost no
momentum. What's happening is the electrons are heating up the air and the
hot air is what's pushing it forward. I'd say that concludes the final
experiment. ...okay one more time ♫ You spin me right round baby, right round. Like a record baby, right round. Round. Round. ♫ (faster) Well, you've made it to the end. I know it
can be a little dry at times but I hope that by now you understand all of the
ins and outs of the Slayer Exciter Tesla Coil circuit. Well, that's all I got.
Remember to stay safe and have fun!
