[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

super cheap capacitance/inductance Tesla coil metering



Original poster: Terry Fritz <vardin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Hi All,

Making an oscillator with a 555 timer to measure capacitance is on my mind. I "think" it could do inductance easily too...

I was thinking of a trivial LM555C timer circuit powered by a 9V battery that would plug into the sound card jack of a computer to read the frequency. A little program might be able to do the math directly...

Thus, one might be able to make a LC meter for like $5 which I think many of us would like.

There is probably some free program out there that does the "sound card input jack to frequency readout" function????

Everyone has a sound card these days and plenty of resistors protect the computer... So the "high level" hardware is already done...

I suppose such a thing could be made into a Tesla coil primary and secondary "tuner too"... A PC with a sound card plus some cheap and easy "Radio Shack" parts is a pretty powerful machine!!! It really could be a sound out cable to alligator clips and a resistor protected similar input cable if you had nice software...

I know the hardware side, but not the software side...

Hmmmm....

It would be a cool addition to Tesla coil design programs... I would love to be able to send out $10 worth of stuff for someone to hook to their coil and it would read back everything we need to know about it ;-)))

Just a thought...

Cheers,

	Terry