I'm building a spark gap tesla coil for a school project and I'm realizing that I've gotten in over my head somewhat, but having already spent money on capacitors and a transformer, I'd like to try to do it anyway. My electronics knowledge extends slightly beyond high school physics.
What value resistors should I be getting to make sure that the capacitors (in a multiple mini array for the primary cap) discharge in a reasonable amount of time (under 10 minutes or so) when the coil is not in use? What I've read indicates that I should be using resistors in the neighborhood of 5 MΩ, but I don't know what power rating to get (or if it even matters) and want to be sure. I'm using 13 parallel strings of 15 0.01 µF, 3 kV (DC) capacitors for 45 kV and 8.67 nF total. The peak voltage from the transformer should be around 21 kV (it's a 15 kV neon sign transformer, times sqrt(2)), so there should be a max of about 1.4kV across each capacitor, I think.
I looked over the textbooks, but I don't think I have enough background to understand how to do this. I am slowly making my way through them, but that'll take time... Thanks!
What value resistors should I be getting to make sure that the capacitors (in a multiple mini array for the primary cap) discharge in a reasonable amount of time (under 10 minutes or so) when the coil is not in use? What I've read indicates that I should be using resistors in the neighborhood of 5 MΩ, but I don't know what power rating to get (or if it even matters) and want to be sure. I'm using 13 parallel strings of 15 0.01 µF, 3 kV (DC) capacitors for 45 kV and 8.67 nF total. The peak voltage from the transformer should be around 21 kV (it's a 15 kV neon sign transformer, times sqrt(2)), so there should be a max of about 1.4kV across each capacitor, I think.
I looked over the textbooks, but I don't think I have enough background to understand how to do this. I am slowly making my way through them, but that'll take time... Thanks!