Teslathon

[xolotl]

Today was the UK teslathon in Derby. The notable event was Martin Dale trying to break the European record for spark length.

First up was a small but non the less entertaining coil.

Cute.

Now for the main event!

 

[xolotl]

Ooh pretty, and close.

Even closer.

Bingo.

And that's a record, 12ft which is two foot over the previous record.

I appreciate the pictures aren't brilliant but they do tell a story. Plus Tesla coils are damn hard to photograph.

 

[xolotl]

Just got the figures for this setup.

2,900,000 volts and just under 10,000w. Mightily impressive.

 

[xolotl]

Especially as some of those sparks are dangerously close to those overhead lights

If you look closely you can see the fluorescent tubes glowing from the EM radiation given off by them.

As for the henry it was used to cool the spark gap that is needed for these coils. These turn the electricity into pulses and thus allow for the long arcs. The big coil learnt the hard way about this as the spark gap got fried on the record breaking run.

Yes the event are dangerous, but only if your stupid, it isn't open to the public (for a good reason) but as long as you don't touch anything you'll be fine. Due to the poles on the top of the big coil the arcs were only going in one direction.

 

[xolotl]

How do they stop that from dischargin to the closet electronic object or earth ie you. My physics is rusty.

If you look at this pic:

http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/184/crw7647011tv.jpg

You can see next to the coil is a lighting tripod. If the coil was going to arc towards the crowd it would go to that. But that didn't happen and all the arcs were towards the other coil.