Tesla Downunder

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For comprehensive visitor statistics (including you!), click the icon. 

       

visitors to both sites since Feb 2003.
 


"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Lord Acton, 1887.


 

Comments? Queries? Criticisms?

Done something similar?

Contact me at:

pterren@iinet.net.au

 

Thanks to financial donors to the site and their interests:

Dr Ranon Udkoff
CO2 lasers

Lyle Palmer
neon tubes

Bob Ziegenhals

Dr Nagi Hatoum
M.D., M.S.E.E.
Mag Arrays

Diskojockey

Oliver de Peyer
Lab automation UK

Stephen Rosman
Australia

Lacklustre
Finland

Jon Singer
N lasers

Maxim Magazine

A J
Perth, W Australia

Tesla (Europe) Ltd

TJP, USA

www.datamancer.net
(Steampunk laptop)

Ward Christensen
Inventor 1st BBS

 

 

 

 

Wonder what this site looked like in 2003?

Wayback Machine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peter Terren


, . Welcome.">

An Australian site detailing almost 200 high voltage and other projects such as...


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Tesla coil (above) with lots of 6 foot power arcs.  Awesome to be near. For dramatic spark photos go to Tesla coil sparks.
Or check out 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. Perhaps look at the  Tesla inspired Christmas tree, the Red Alert Tesla coil, Jacob's Bi-ladder, making liquid oxygen, Discovery Channel videos of my stuff, my new record spark length of 11 feet,  multicolored sparks,  the Tesla Envy video - up VERY close to huge sparks, Dalek cage, swimming with 100,000 volts, video of car theft protection, "Eye of Sauron" and a sparks for beginners project with only 3 components.
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, Blu-ray laser, 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...

    May 2008. Check out the What's New Blog for details.  Recent highlights in the last month include sparkler effects, spiral impulse generatorHigh Voltage Antivirus, Orange vortex rings and huge (26 inch) x-ray transformer arc.  

Favourite pictures:  (out of over 1200 in this site)


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Above, A Tesla inspired Christmas tree. That's how we do it in Oz.  Merry Christmas.


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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.


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Above shows "Tesladownunder car theft protection". You must see the video as well for a laugh.

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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).

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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.

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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.

   
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Above:  How about red sparks?

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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.

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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.


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Above: The ring of 'antivirus' protection done with 60,000 volt sparks.

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Above, exploding the Easter Bunny - because I can (and the foil wrapping is conductive).

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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).  Seems odd that my longest spark photo is 26 th photo down.


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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 above, is the violet laser out of a Blu-ray player made into a laser pointer.  The center photo shows a hologram from this unit.  On the right is a beam through Fluorescein, tonic water and Rhodamine showing green, blue and orange fluorescence in turn.


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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.

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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. 

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Above. The bigger can crusher at currents of 80,000 A will tear it in thirds, or in a spiral depending on the shape of the work coil.

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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.

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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 supplyPower supply 1971 style. The right photo is actually my most impressive high power arc at over 2 feet long from an x-ray transformer.

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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.

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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.

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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. Also orange smoke.


 
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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.


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Photos above show a 5 second exposure of a sparkler attached to an electric drill.

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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 .

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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 
The Canadian Discovery channel has done 4 videos of my stuff. Nice high quality production which took about 6 hours shooting for each 5 mins. 

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 broadband link to run.

Session 2     3:45 mins shown Sept 11, 2007 in Canada. Includes capacitor discharges, big TC construction. Needs fast broadband link to run.

Session 3     5 mins  shown Nov 21, 2007 in Canada.  Includes the big TC in  a big domed building. Runs with normal broadband.

Session 4    5 mins shown Dec 20, 2007 in Canada. About the Tesla Christmas tree.  If you are in Canada (only) you can watch it here.  Runs with normal broadband.


(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
This is dangerous stuff. Your first touch of live primary Tesla coil voltage (8,000 volts) has a good chance of being fatal depending on circuit paths and peak current. The secondary voltage (500,000 volts) is less dangerous due to lower currents but will still cause burns with less pain than low frequency current.  High voltage capacitors as used with the can crusher are even more dangerous with many times a lethal charge.  The capacitors from defibrillators are actually designed to stop your heart.
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

<script language="JavaScript1.2" src="http://www.altavista.com/r?entr"></script>
This was the top site in the Tesla Coil Webring (353 members) in April 2003.
To browse visit Here.
Tesladownunder in the media: Not the best site in the world but tryin' hard.

Here's where I stand...
Around 1200 websites feature a link or my pictures. See them here at Backward links.

Google PageRank 5 (0-10)
Google search for Tesladownunder: 33,000 hits July 2007 at its peak.
Download bandwidth Jan to June 2007: 1Terrabyte (=1000 Gigabytes)
Alexa rank peak global internet reach .016%. Currently .0016%.  Rank 94,400 July 2007
Digg: total Diggs (for Tesladownunder hits) 12,000 in 37 topics Jan 2008
Discovery Channel Canada has shown four segments of between 4-5 mins each on Daily Planet in Sept - Dec 2007 in Canada.
The 6 inch coil was the top of 11,000 Google Tesla coil images from May - Oct 2005 and Jan - July 2006.

My Tesla coil on a car pictures account for 1% of Google Tesla coil images at least in the first 1000. Sept 2007
This was the top site in the Tesla Coil WebRing (261 active members) in April 2003.
This was the top site in the High Voltage WebRing (23 members) from June 2003 through to Jan 2004.
This was the top site in the Spud cannons of the internet Webring (20 members) for 9 of 12 months to Aug 05.
This was the top site in the Mad Scientists WebRing (23 members) in October 2004, July to Sept 2005. 
          My insanity is confirmed!
This was the 3rd top site in the Fun Science WebRing (46 members) in Aug 2005. ..but surely this is fun?

 

Photo Competition (Aug 2005 Sunday Times circ 365,000) Won a AUD$2000 Nikon D70s digital camera. There were 5000 entries in 2 categories with 40 photos published in each. See photo on left.

 

 

 

 

 

Photo Competition  ACDSee picture software in 2003
Featured Australian Medicine magazine May 2003
BMW site (click on Knck Out) with a YouTube link featured in July 2007

Science and Life Junior magazine (French) had a 4 page spread Nov 2007 (below)



World Almanac for kids 2008 had a pic (below).

 

Maxim Magazine (UK version) Dec 2007 It is a "men's magazine" and the cover is perhaps too saucy for my front page. 

Ok it's here (UK cover) NSFW.  Also had different article in Czech Maxim with similar NSFW cover here (Czech)

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UK Maxim article on left and Czech version on right.

 

Left is the Metro newspaper page 3 article in the UK , Dec 7 2007 and on the right Spectrum.IEEE May 2007.
   

 

A Chinese book "Contemporary Art of Science and Technology" 2008 contains some pics too.

 

Other magazines have featured photos and articles including Zoo, Jafmate, Chinese astronomical journal and International comet quarterly.

This site has 1200 photos in 33 pages and is over 460 MB.
This page is being updated frequently ( last May 07, 2008 ) so feel free to visit again.

Donations
Hey buddy, got a dime? I am frugal but this can still be expensive stuff. If you care to donate US$10 towards further projects I would be most grateful and will provide an acknowledgement on this page. I will also endeavor to spend 1 hour working on the page topic of your choice. Talk about cheap labor. No I won't make that intergalactic beam weapon for that amount but email me and we can discuss things.


Donate US$10
Currently looking for $10 for current meter parts.
Donors acknowledged in the left column on this page

Creative Commons LicenseAll of the work on this website (unless stated) is licensed under a                         Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License
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