Tesla

[progbuddy]

ya ive seen that one. i think the guy is in australia. he knows what hes doing, to the point that he can control the emissions. only downside is you cant drive because you have to be plugged in to an outlet. you definitely cant run something like that off a battery and expect to get anywhere. its very cool anyways. id like to be there in person to see it working.

It could run off a battery. You would just need a VERY large converter. Car batteries can pull about 700 amps at 12 volts. Just have to convert the amps to volts, and you'll have a tesla coil running off a battery.

[Slug Toy]

It could run off a battery. You would just need a VERY large converter. Car batteries can pull about 700 amps at 12 volts. Just have to convert the amps to volts, and you'll have a tesla coil running off a battery.

well im not saying you CANT... you just cant for very long. sure, a battery can probably run a tesla coil for a couple minutes at most, but the power needed by a 200kv coil far outweighs the power available in a battery. it could easily be 2 megawatts or more.

[progbuddy]

well im not saying you CANT... you just cant for very long. sure, a battery can probably run a tesla coil for a couple minutes at most, but the power needed by a 200kv coil far outweighs the power available in a battery. it could easily be 2 megawatts or more.

I boiled water with a "AA" battery . Happened instantaneously. I also oxidized steel in about 9 seconds with a car battery, then set it on fire. Batteries supply some serious amps.

[Slug Toy]

I boiled water with a "AA" battery . Happened instantaneously. I also oxidized steel in about 9 seconds with a car battery, then set it on fire. Batteries supply some serious amps.

well you dont need serious amps to do either of those really. you can burn up steel wool with a AAA. i think what happened with the water was electrolysis. not the same as boiling. i still maintain my claim that tesla coils will kill batteries very fast. i figure probably within 3.6 seconds for the big setups actually.

[Tesladownunder]

I am Tesladownunder. Thought I'd pop by.

Re the car battery. Just need 2kW to be comfortable. This would be 200A or so. Most inverters over 1kW run on 24 V, however. So not an easy drop in but certainly not impossible. Only 3HP worth of power. Easier to sling a 5kW petrol generator in the back of the car.
But heck, this isn't a serious anything, just a cool picture now seen by perhap 500,000 people.

That pic was also shot in video for the Discovery Channel, Canada two days ago at my place in Bunbury, Australia. The producers say they can frame shuffle to get that effect live. I did try shuffling 100 frames of a video to do that myself but my software and equipment didn't make a good go of it.

The video I made of it is here on YouTube

I prefer the Red version....

[DaveW]

I am Tesladownunder. Thought I'd pop by.

DUDE. You need to stick around and mod something. PLEASE.

-Dave

[tybrenis]

DUDE. You need to stick around and mod something. PLEASE.
-Dave

I second that!

[Tesladownunder]

DUDE. You need to stick around and mod something. PLEASE.
-Dave

Better than modding is making. Modern electronics is far to clever to be usefully modded apart from relatively minor tweaks or change the exterior. Not to say that can't be fun though but I prefer making things that are exclusively mine.
On reflection, I have modded a number of Microwave ovens into high voltage supplies and Tesla coils. Making a Tesla coil out of a microwave was challenging. Particularly taking apart a capacitor and rearranging foil/insulator rolls and voltages to get suitable values.
In the last week I completed this. Gives 8 foot sparks.

TDU

[DaveW]

Better than modding is making.

Modding is just an umbrella term. A lot of the stuff you'll see here is made from scratch, bar the actual components themselves.

-Dave