This is the third video in a series of three(now four), on how to get started with the DRSSTC UD3 Tesla coil driver. In this video I wanted to make sparks. I made some sparks, but never got to play MIDI/SID 🙁 I failed. There will have to be a 4th video with proper sparks and music!
If you missed the previously parts, 1 and 2, check it out here: https://kaizerpowerelectronics.dk/teslacoils/nextgen-drsstc-ud3-unboxing-soldering-startup-and-software-part-1-of-3/ and https://kaizerpowerelectronics.dk/teslacoils/nextgen-drsstc-ud3-installation-configuration-software-and-test-part-2-of-3/
I want to give a huge shoutout to Steve Ward, Netzpfuscher (Jens Kerrinnes), Malte0811 and TMaxElectronics (Thorben Zethoff) altogether for their work on the UD3 platform.
UD3 Test and Failure
At first the Tesla coil was running okay, not great but okay. It had been over a year since I last ran a coil, I felt a bit rusty. Telemetry data from the UD3 TeslaTerm was looking good, measurements were correct and in proportion to one another.
Unfortunatly I did not react properly when sparks were observed on the grounded shielding net around the Tesla coil base. I should have known that this is a sign of bad RF grounding. I failed to recognize this and kept making sparks. Eventually this killed the power, either from killing th UD3 driver or IGBTs short circuited, but it was a silent death. Afterwards the telemetry from the UD3 was complete gibberish, made no sense. Analog measurements were going up and down, DC bus voltage was shown despite the coil had been shut off and wasn’t even plugged into mains supply. Temperatures was jumping up and down 5-10 degrees in seconds. Disappointed in myself, I had to pack it all up and go home 🙁
UD3 Information and Links
- Embedded interrupter with MIDI and SID audio modulation
- Primary resonator fres measurement (frequency sweep)
- Primary peak current measurement over feedback CT
- Pulse skipping
- Alarm/Event system for fault tracing
- System fault interlocks for undervoltage/temperature/watchdog
- Bus current measurement (current or voltage mode CT)
- Controls up to 4 relays to handle inrush current and other things
- Can control an external light display for showing selected parameters
- It runs FreeRTOS, making it easy to add new functionality
- Commandline over serial interface
- Multi user commandline over MIN-Protocol
- Dual voltage measurement (differential)
- Support for Teslaterm and UD3-node
- Telemetry over serial
- Bootloader with serial/usb support (firmware update with Teslaterm)
UD3 github: https://github.com/Netzpfuscher/UD3/wiki
TeslaTerm github: https://github.com/malte0811/Teslaterm
FiberNet github: https://github.com/TMaxElectronics/UD3_Fibernet
UD3.1b github: https://github.com/TMaxElectronics/UD3.1