This is a snug single person Faraday cage that allows you to get up close and personal with 6 foot sparks. It’s shape is reminiscent of a Dalek from Dr Who. Remember “We will ex-term-in-ate”. It is a simple walk in and walk out affair, open at the back.
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It is constructed from fencing wire and a hanging basket planter. It is earthed and should be safe as long as you don’t stick your fingers out. I am standing on the earthed section. The sparkles are from some steel wool on the cage.
Above: Suzanne is a Dutch TV presenter who got into the cage .
A video which demonstrates the cage.
From my perspective in the cage, it is not as impressive as you might think as the sparks are largely end on. I have high efficiency earmuffs on and my glasses have a UV filter. The brim of the “pork pie” hat lets me know when my head is getting too close to the cage and also keeps the iron sparkles out of my eyes.
This is the view from inside the Faraday cage. Difficult to get a good shot even with a wide angle lens. Spark length is about 4 feet coming to about 4 inches. This doesn’t convey the noise, light or just plain scariness of it.
There is a slight tickle of high voltage if you touch the cage lightly due to the voltage drop over the full height of the cage which is part resistive at the high currents and part inductive. There is only minimal sensation when using the glove which has two separate earth’s to the cage. I also lean on the cage as well with the glove.
I can also use it with my chain mail glove and I also have a little neon light sabre.
For my set up for the TV show, Australia’s Got Talent, I tried some internal cage lighting. On the day, however, it was decided not to use the lighting.
Just what you need to get up close and personal with lotsa volts. And you can even use a phone in it.
Above: “Honey… there’s some electrical interference…”
The mobile phone actually works fine, just very hard to hear.
Related pages
Big Tesla coil
Telsa Envy – video
Try something else
External links
Photo Date: June 16, 2007