DIY Tesla Lightning Project
Approx construction cost US$150
Great Balls of fire? Perhaps, if you live dangerously and try to match the skills of Zeus!
Short of divine intervention, most of us are never going to get to control nature’s most spectacular effect – lightning. However, thanks to the genius of a 145-year old physicist, you can! The purpose of this article is to enable you to build a working Tesla Coil with an arc output of at least 50cm, and to give you a general idea as to why and how it works.
It is stressed, though, that voltages and currents within a Tesla Coil are capable of killing you by accident without you deliberately letting them pass through your body. You undertake construction and use of this Tesla Coil entirely at your own risk.
More details on this construction project can be found in the March 2001 issue of EPE Online, the world's first web-delivered electronics and computing hobbyist magazine.
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