Build an Amazing Tesla CD Turbine

Build an Amazing Tesla CD Turbine

Build a real working turbine from recycled CD's!

This Tesla CD Turbine is based on the Tesla turbine, which was invented by Nikola Tesla in the early 1900's.

Tesla's pumps and motors were unique in that they only used discs, and took advantage of the boundary layer effect. His smallest designs were over 100 horsepower.

This Instructable is an introduction to my recently developed Tesla CD Turbine, which is made from CD's, CD spindle, pipe fittings and glue. This easy beginners version runs on garden hose pressure and is fun for demonstration or experimentation purposes. This same CD Turbine can also be powerful, versatile, useful and dangerous when used with compressed air pressure.

The basic model Tesla CD Turbine shows how the boundary layer idea works to deliver power. The CD Turbine has unique design features such as no moving shaft, no bearings, no seals and uses recycled CD's. It is so frictionless that it can go over 500 rpm just by blowing into it hard!

The advanced model has many cool features, such as the use of neodymium magnets to separate the CD's with the correct gap and a Magnetic Coupler to attach implements, and much more.

My next CD Turbine Instructable shows how to make a Magnetic Disc Pack and Magnetic Coupler for more advanced CD Turbine experimentation. I will develop magnetically-coupled implements that will range from the practical (Generator, SaladSpinner, etc.) to the bizarre ( Skilsaw Blade , Punch Bowl Stirrer, etc).

However, please be forewarned that this turbine on air pressure is not really a kid's toy or particularly safe to operate.
On water pressure it is safe from explosion, maxing out at about 1000 rpm.

The turbine can be run on either water and air pressure without modification. Although this simple turbine can be safely run at one or two thousand rpm on water hose pressure, it can turn tens of thousands of rpm on air pressure.

I must warn you running this turbine on air pressure could be enough to explode the CD's in the turbine and cause injury. To prevent this, regulate the air supply to lower the psi and use a digital tachometer like this one.

If this unit is run on air pressure, precautions must be taken such as protective gear (heavy leather gloves, face shield, helmet, leather jacket & pants, cup(?), etc.), as well as being behind a protective barrier. If the CD Turbine comes apart at 25,000 rpm, sharp CD parts will be impelled literally at the speed of a gun. You are forewarned!

I will be discussing ways to avoid any possible unpleasantness as we go along in these Instructables, but for now...let's have some FUN!
 
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Step 1Materials and Tools

Materials and Tools
MATERIALS LIST: (Total Cost about $10.)

1.) 10 (or more) recycled CD's (no labels & no cracks)
2.) CD Spindle with Cover (recycled)
3.) Orbit WaterMaster Extension Nozzle Model 91129 ( Home Depot, $5.95, or try a $1.80 Nozzle from Holland GreenHouse products.)
4.) 1-1/2 inch of plastic straw or tube to fit small end of Nozzle above
5.) Garden Hose Shut-off Valve ($3.50)
6.) 2 feet or more of 3/4 inch PVC plastic pipe ($.50?)
7.) ABS to PVC cement
8.) PVC Pipe Primer
9.) Methylene Chloride (Plastics Shop), for welding polycarbonate CD Discs to each other.
10.) Hot-glue sticks...less than a half dozen

TOOLS LIST:

Gluegun
Hobbyknife
Dremel Tool (optional)
Sandpaper

Notes: 1.) More than 10 CD's may be used for taller CD spindles.
2.) If you can't find the "Orbit Watermaster Nozzle", you could use any plastic or brass water nozzle, such as the Holland GreenHouse brand Plastic or Brass Power Nozzle. Or simply use a combination of pipe fittings down to a 1/8 inch nozzle, and adapt with hot-glue to the CD Cover.
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348 comments
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Feb 8, 2012. 10:21 AMkeegan says:
wow, you managed to get it running at 500rpm just by blowing hard? i just built one and it hardly goes at 100rpm by blowing... also, i understand there is supposed to be a gap between the discs - how do you do that? anyway thanks for the clear instructions and pictures!
Jun 14, 2011. 3:47 PMelmotactics says:
I have no idea as to the feasibility of something like this, but would it be possible to make this into a sort of wind turbine, and then use the magnet discs as a generator? I know that in general small-scale wind turbines have a lot of trouble overcoming the magnetism of the permanent magnets unless there is a powerful wind, so this seems like it would be a lot easier. I was thinking something like having a large, flared intake to maximize air pressure, and then a tail boom to make sure it orients itself with the wind .
Nov 6, 2011. 4:15 AMwildwabbit says:
I'm been experimenting with wind turbines for about a year now and built a few HAWTS and VAWTS each one improving on the last. I'll do an intructable soon, have been a bit slack.

Funneling just doesn't work with wind turbines, its relates back to the equation that only 59% of wind energy of a given swept area can be harnessed. This is largely due to airs high viscosity, it bounces around and creates turbulence within a funnel, a small amount of funneling will improve performance slightly but large funnels actually make turbines less efficient, as they create drag and turbulence rather than allowing a clean stream of air onto the turbine. The amount of compression you could get with funneling would be minimal at best.

I do however believe that using wind turbines to compress air via a piston or pump is completely feasible and would like to look into doing this myself.
Nov 6, 2011. 12:35 PMwildwabbit says:
I have seen this video it is quite old and am yet to see this design running in anything other than a controled environment. I think the concept does work but it will only operate effectively in optimum conditions, ie: strong consistant winds.
Not a great deal of practical application, in most real world environments.

If I saw a video of this turbine out doors in a light to moderate breeze, I be more inclined to beleive it has potential. However no such video's exist. I'be made a coupe of lenz2 turbines, with a good degree of success, and recently came across the "canstien" or " c-rotor" which is a variation of the lens 2 design. I plan on building one of identical proportions to one of my. Lenz2's will post an instructable in the near future to compare the two designs.
You can see some of my turbines on my youtube channel wildwabbit74
Jul 28, 2011. 9:55 AMjwesson says:
i was thinking of the same kind of wind tunnel using a 12V electric motor attached to the spindle to be a generator. here's hoping you figure it out. that's half the fun, isn't it?

:)
.
Jul 28, 2011. 9:56 AMjwesson says:
with all the different methods of generating electricity with Tesla's designs, the only thing a patent will do is ensure that mine can't appear to be the same as yours, even if it basically works the same, because the improved application is so obvious to those of us with a good imagination.
Aug 3, 2011. 3:38 PMmexiquinn says:
could you use a water balloon nozzle
Jul 19, 2011. 2:20 AMjsimonyan says:
please tell me if im crazy, i want to build one of these cd case turbines but im not sure if my case is the right size, it will hold about 53 normal cds, i measured the removable part of the case to be 3.125 inches tall (3 and 1/8) so factoring in that cds are .053 inches tall(.053x with x being the number of cds) and i need magnets for each layer which are .03125(1/32 inches tall) making the equation .053x + .03125x < 3.125(the height of the cd case) so the number of cds i could fit in (counting magnets) is 37(i rounded down to 35). am i crazy? did i totally mess up the equation??? because i see you with 10 disc turbines and you seem to have the case full, please help, i dont want to buy 5x the amount of magnets i need, they are very expensive :P
Jun 12, 2011. 10:20 AMphysicsproj says:
Hey there, I just finished making a turbine for a physics project, and i wanted to thank you for the very helpful instructions! It would have taken me much longer, and been much more arduous without your help.
May 30, 2011. 1:52 PMpilotgabe says:
I am amking an air powered version and just to be on the safe side what is the highest PSI can i go up to with out causing a blow out and injuring me or other materials around me? Thanks if you can let me know!!!
Jun 1, 2011. 9:41 AMpilotgabe says:
THANK YOU!!! this is the much needed info i need now with the turbine disks its self is there a great design on how to cut the disks to make holes in the blades or is that a dangerous way to "frag" the disks Iwant to use the magnet idea and also incororate this turbine design into a future jet model that i want to build so anything you got on this?
Jun 1, 2011. 8:34 PMpilotgabe says:
again there thank you for the info you are giving me! I was also doing experiments and was also making aluminium foil disks and other material as well. but safety is always a factor or the number one priority that i do. So yes i am being safewith this.
Apr 25, 2011. 4:32 AMHav0c says:
awesome instructable man, 5 star!
Feb 21, 2011. 8:13 AMbowmaster says:
Cool. I have an idea that would use the magnetic coupling to turn a magnetic mixing rod to stir things. You could also use it to turn a blade to make a turbine powered food processor if the tourque is high anough and would transfer through the magnetic field.
Feb 21, 2011. 3:33 PMbowmaster says:
Cool. I'm going to try putting a fan on it and use to make wind!!
Feb 21, 2011. 6:14 PMbowmaster says:
Cool, looks kinda weird through. What advantages does it offer over a regular fan? It seems with that small hole not very much air would blow.
Feb 22, 2011. 5:03 AMbowmaster says:
Ahh, I get it. It's based of the boundary layer effect like the turbine right? When I can find more info I may make one.
Feb 17, 2011. 5:36 PMfairbanksd says:
Very good safety points on RPM limits with typical CD's . Has anyone tried to build the same tesla device using super balanced disc from a hard drive? I believe these could be suitable and carefully machined to boot.
Feb 16, 2011. 9:19 PMskibum97 says:
My science fair partner and i are working on the tesla turbine and we were just gluing on the magnets with Methylene Chloride and we waited for a couple of hours but it still wasnt sticking, they came off when we tipped it up on edge.
How would you go about getting the magnets to stick?
Sep 22, 2009. 9:14 PMZem says:
Is it just me, or in the second picture is there an Alternator connected to it?
Feb 8, 2011. 10:43 AMRottom says:
would it not be presumable that if you added a small engine torque converter that it would up the rpms that are being produces
Feb 8, 2011. 1:20 PMRottom says:
ok point taken, but could you not design an engagement mechanism for after the turbine was up to speed that way it does not bog the turbine under instant pressure.
Feb 9, 2011. 5:19 AMRottom says:
seems i need to build one of these to do some testing for myself to see if there is maybe even a gearing system for possibility of more speed with less load... aether way love the challenge.
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Author:mrfixitrick(Mrfixitricks Youtube Channel)
I am re-inventing myself as an inventor, after too many years as a mechanic! I enjoy learning from Tesla disc Turbines, magnetic motors, and Crystal Quantum Radios. "All children are artists. The ...
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