First light on Tesla Two!

Yeeha! Lookit those sparks 5 second exposure

To make Tesla Two I reused the primary, secondary, tank cap and topload from Tesla One. I made a totally new power supply and spark gap. The power supply is a DC resonant charger running off a MOT and voltage multiplier. For a charging reactor I used four 8 henry chokes from Maplin in series. The spark gap is a tiny ARSG powered by a vacuum cleaner motor. (More pics and tech info to come.)

For these pictures I had the MOT running at full voltage and the RSG motor powered off the mains with a 60 watt light bulb in series. I think it was running around 300 or 400bps but I can't be sure. I originally tried to control the motor speed with a dimmer switch, but the dimmer switch blew up. (I guess the "Not for use with motors" warning in the instructions was right.)

The sparks from Tesla Two look totally amazing. It forms two or three long streamers that grow and snake around slowly, like a very big and noisy plasma globe. They are probably about 24" to 30". Once in a while I got a hit to the strike rail.

Once I get the motor controller working I should be able to wind it up to 400-500bps and things ought to get pretty manic.

Back to TC page