Above: There are lots of other colors to see in multi-colored sparks. These are single photographic exposures through clear and colored filters in turn.
Above, swimming with 100,000 volts. Sure it's safe. Tin hats protect you. Only do this at home. See the Discovery Channel video 5:14 mins for the full details.
Above, exploding the Easter Bunny - because I can (and the foil wrapping is conductive).
Above: The capacitor bank is discharging 3 kJ in to some steel wool for more impressive sparkler effects. See the second Discovery Channel video 3:45 mins for this in real time.
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Above: Lots of spark pictures from 30,000 to 100,000 volts. I like sparks ...
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Above, Tesla coils with spark from 2 inches (5cm) to 11 feet (3.3m).
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Above, some unusual solid state Tesla coils on the left using SIDACs instead of a spark gap, centre using a Royer circuit and on the right a vacuum tube based coil and its sparks.
The big capacitor bank is running at huge powers now and is great for exploding wires.
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Above, from left to right: an electronic art piece, homemade computer plotter and a solar model car.
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Above on the left is my new lifter with neon lights installed. Center shows a run outdoors and the right shows the installation in a science museum.
Above on the left is a much stronger lifter running on 80 kV lifting its own weight. The right photo shows 4.5 inch sparks if overdriven.
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Above left is my magnetic levitation display running, centre is a coil levitated and on the right is hydrogen/chlorine ignition at the back of my model boat with magnetohydrodynamic drive.
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Above left is aerogel, the worlds lightest solid - "frozen smoke" and right is the bizarre ferrofluid.
On the left above is my home made Nitrogen laser with the beam in Fluorescein. The center picture shows the Nitrogen laser diffraction pattern. The laser is ultraviolet but shines up with a blue fluorescence on white paper. The right picture shows green 5 mW diode and red HeNe 10 mW beams grazing the camera.
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On the left is my son with a blue laser burning the garage roof. (Actually a small alcohol flamethrower). The center photo shows a real blue laser parallel to a HeNe red beam. On the right is a pattern from a laser beam modulated by two mirror galvanometers.
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On the left: "Beam me up, Scotty" to far away galaxies... The argon laser beam is modulated by two mirror galvanometers. The center photo shows the dramatic effects by making a smoke tunnel with a circular beam. On the right is a pattern from the beam through a diffraction grating showing the multiple spectral lines.
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Above left shows the 800 amp spotwelder flash. Centre is the flyback supply. Right is a battery operated Candy box HV supply using old camera and TV parts.
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Above left is liquid nitrogen in the pool. Center photo shows the dangerous stunt of putting my hand in liquid nitrogen. Right photo shows the gear I use to make liquid oxygen using liquid nitrogen.
Above left is a banana hammer for hammering in small nails. The banana becomes hard and brittle at liquid nitrogen temperatures. On the right is a flower made glass like and brittle.
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Above left is tonic water under UV light. Centre is a scorpion fluorescing under UV and on the right a handful of uranium glass marbles.
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To the left is the completed railgun. Centre is a Handpowered coilgun and to the right a Spud gun.
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Above. Can crushing with magnetic induction upgraded and now tears the can apart with 40,000 A.
Above. The bigger can crusher at currents of 80,000 A will tear it in thirds, or in a spiral depending on the shaped of the work coil.
Above, the technical stuff about measuring the very high current pulses. The center photo shows an early coin shrinking attempt and the right photo shows amazing shrinkage of a 1 yen coin. You can still see the Japanese characters miniaturized. Bonsai for coins.
Above, Magneforming is the use of extreme magnetic fields to form a metal sheet over an object.
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Above, rewiring a microwave oven into a useful HV supply. Power supply 1971 style.
Above, a Jacob's ladder and a Jacobs Bi-ladder. On the right, some sparks viewed end-on.
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Above, strange behavior of high voltage. Woodburn fractals, the arc-repellant screwdriver and plasma in a magnetic field.
Can you work out what these have to do with high voltage or magnetism? Left, center or right for the answers.
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More strange behavior of high voltage. Electrostatic levitation of non conductive (deionised) water and arcs onto a water surface.
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High speed photos of Tesla coil sparks showing detail of events in time after the spark (left), before the main spark (center) and details of the polarity of each trailing spark. Ordinary photos perhaps, until you consider that the time difference between each spark in the left photo is 5 millionths of a second.
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One volt can be impressive too (at 533 amps). Spinthariscope made from around the house materials to view alpha particle activity. Internals of a 120 kV x-ray head.
Above is a Geiger counter registering high counts from a Uranium ore sample. The graph shows background radiation counts from my home updated 6 hourly.
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The amazing Marinov motor (two ball races and an axle) at 1223 RPM and 165 A. On the right is an incredibly simple homopolar motor which runs at 5000 RPM and takes seconds to assemble.
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On the left is a magnetic sensor array. Dull at rest but gives on the center and right gives interesting mapping of unusual fields on movement.
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Above shows a vortex ring launcher. Lots of fun and a unique opportunity for basketball players.
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More vortex ring shots giving unusual effects like the "UFO" in the center.
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More unusual spark effects from a very large light globe and a spark playing over a magnet in water. A laser scanner gives interesting effects.
Above: Comet McNaught photo which made it to the cover of the Chinese astronomical journal and a few other places.
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Above, meet some friendly visitors to our rural property .
Above left, Big Day Out 2005 with Syd Klinge and his 100KVA coil in Australia. Right photo is the same concert in 2006 with Carlos and his twin coils with two performers.
Videos
View the Discovery channel videos here from their site. Nice high quality production. Session 3 runs like a normal video but Session 1 and 2 need a fast link or can be downloaded without frame loss using a program like Orbit.
Session 1 5:14 mins shown Sept 4, 2007 in Canada. Includes smoke rings, electric shocks, capacitor discharges and sparks in the pool. Needs fast ADSL link to run.
Session 2 3:45 mins Shown Sept 11, 2007. Includes capacitor discharges, big TC construction. Needs fast ADSL link to run.
Session 3 shown Nov 21 which includes the big TC in a big domed building. Runs with normal ADSL.
Session 4 is about the Christmas tree and was shot Dec 8 2007. If you are in Canada (only) you can watch it here.
(click to run WMV video 4.7MB or go to YouTube version)
This is my best video titled "Tesla Envy - getting VERY close to huge sparks". See sparks from my largest Tesla coil striking a Faraday cage only inches from my face. This video is also linked to a BMW advert (click on Knckout) and their YouTube link.
Magnetic levitation showing the magnet rotating in the air (0.6 M MPEG video) and a Tesla coil in action (0.5 M MPEG video).
This is a rather technical site. The glossary may help.
Want a display? I now have 5 running displays in science museums or physics departments in Western Australia. I am happy to provide advice, contribute to, or construct displays relevant to my areas of expertise for local use. By their nature many displays need ongoing servicing so local Western Australia is probably the only feasible area. Costs are reasonable and open to discussion. This is not my day job so it helps if it gets my interest and has a challenge. Email address is pterren@iinet.net.au
Disclaimer
The Dept of Energy Safety has approved the Tesla coil equipment but see Misc for details as they are not plugged directly into the mains but rather pass through a 50 V AC stage.
Read and enjoy the information here. Do not attempt any of this unless you have read everything you can about it here and elsewhere and you have a clear and fool proof plan for safety. See further info in Misc
For comprehensive visitor statistics (including you!), click the icon. visitors to both sites since Feb 2003.
Comments? Queries? Criticisms? Done something similar?
Thanks to financial donors to the site and their interests: Dr Ranon Udkoff Lyle Palmer Bob Ziegenhals Dr Nagi Hatoum Diskojockey Oliver de Peyer Stephen Rosman Lacklustre Jon Singer Maxim Magazine A J TJP, USA www.datamancer.net
Wonder what this site looked like in 2003?
Peter Terren |   (click to enlarge) Tesla coil (above) with lots of 6 foot power arcs. Awesome to be near. For more photos of sparks up to 11 feet (= 3.3 m and around half a million volts) go to Tesla coil sparks. plus... a 16,000 Joule 12,000 volt capacitor bank for hugely powerful discharges. Half a gigawatt of peak power used for Can crushing, coinshrinking, exploding wires and many other experiments. Other capacitor banks with electronic switching drive projectile devices such as a rail gun and coil gun. Other HV stuff stuff includes voltage multipliers, Van de Graaff generator, Jacobs ladder, lifters and other high voltage supplies. Various lasers including a homemade ultraviolet nitrogen laser, NdYAG, HeNe and CO2. Also magnetohydrodynamic drive, 800 A spotwelder, huge smoke rings, liquid nitrogen, ferrofluid, magnetic levitation, miscellaneous electronic projects and a few half baked ideas...
Favourite pictures: (out of over 1200 in this site)
Above, A Tesla inspired Christmas tree. That's how we do it in Oz. Merry Christmas.
Above, the recreation of the Red Alert Tesla coil using a real one. Above, the Tesla trooper from Red Alert in action with a real Tesla coil.
Above shows "Tesladownunder car theft protection". You must see the video as well for a laugh.
Above shows a Tesla coil with rotating long breakout point looking dramatic on time exposure of 22 seconds. The "Eye of Sauron". The two photos above have been seen by perhaps 500,000 people worldwide now since Feb 2007 and resulted in well over 100,000 hits to my site. My ISP ran out of bandwidth and had to shut me down for a day after 330 GB transfer. It was featured on some big sites and hundreds of blogs and was also popular in Russia and Japan. (For printing, 6 megapixel uncropped versions of most photos are available at a small charge - my email is in the left column).
Above, the "Aura of Sauron". It looks unreal but there is no "photoshopping" anywhere on this website. All my photos are single exposures with very little post processing ie real photos. The effects come from doing things during the exposure which can be striking particularly if the source of sparks have shifted or rotated as above.
Above, the Dalek cage. Just what you need to get up close and personal with lotsa volts. And you can even use a phone in it.
Above: How about red sparks? |
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