Heavy Duty Clip Leads
for
Hooking up Tesla Coil Components

I often make modular parts for my Tesla Coils and never really put it all together into a completed unit.

I have several ways that I connect to a weatherstrip primary. Here is a photo of my HUGE coil and connections to the primary.

It might not be clear, so here is a zoomed in photo.

That is what I call a big clip-lead. I make them up with 10 gauge speaker wire (very flexible) and those flat-headed little clamps from the hardware store. The clamps are soldered to the wire. In case you haven't noticed, I use these to interconnect most of my coils. I call it modular design. Hehe. My coils are always spread around as parts/modules that I hook up as I see fit, using those big clip-leads. Can't get myself to put it all into one box.

Sometimes I have hooked up from below the primary and had the wire hanging down.

I even use these clips to connect up to a pole pig, that I have run up to 60A at 240V.

Now I'm not saying that these are an ideal solution. In fact, the burn marks I have on my primary are due to the less than perfect connections sometimes made with these clip leads (sometimes I put polyethylene spacers between the clip and the other primary turns). But I like the flexibility, and don't mind a little extra excitement.

I did get 9 foot sparks at 7500 Watts with this setup. Some people thought it was a good performance.
HUGE Tesla Coil using Big Clip Leads

Still don't like it? How about this? This is what I used for my DRSSTC primary. The spring-bronze is solderable. If you get some copper or brass strips, you can solder them to various tap points on the primary, and bolt wire onto that.

Anyway, this is what I have done. It should be enough to get you going.