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On 2/26/18 6:22 PM, Chris Boden wrote:
Ignoring limitations of cost and size, is it possible to build a large
precision voltage divider (imagine something inside a 10' tall PVC pipe on
a stand with a toroid in top) that would be able to accurately measure the
output voltages of medium-sized Tesla Coils?
Thoughts? Details? Design/method/parts suggestions?
Has anyone ever done this before at the hobbiest level?
Yes.. Go find a copy of Craggs & Meek and they have construction details
on big HV dividers. The challenge is frequency response - it's really a
distributed RC, etc.
But a better approach is what Terry Fritz did with a capacitor divider -
a E field probe. You have a plate at some distance (where the streamer
won't hit it, hopefully), and you calibrate it by putting a known
voltage on the topload (a RF signal generator coupled through the
primary). Once you empirically determine the calibration constant vs
frequency, you can take a digital scope trace, FFT it, run the
calibration, inverse FFT it and you're done.