[Myrddin]

I built a 7 foot high 10 million volt tesla coil. :-)

My Tesla coil was more conservative. The secondary was a 2 inch diameter, 30 inch long mailing tube. I spent 7 hours winding the secondary with 36 gauge magnet wire. It looked like smooth copper foil. The capacitor was built with a stack of 12" mirror tiles. Spark gap with 10d nails. Primary with some 12 gauge wire stripped from spare Romex. A 15,000 volt neon transformer was used to excite the primary. I powered it up inside an 8 X 8 foot bedroom at a friend's house. The snaky violet discharges went all the way to the walls. After days of work, the total run time was under 5 minutes. Too much RFI.

[RadioAstronomer]

We used tungsten alloy bolts for our spark gap and power pole transformers hooked to a copper busbar we bent into a coil with plexiglass sheet insulators. :-)

The secondary coil was wound on a cardboard form used to pour concrete bridge columns.

We too only fired it up for a short time. LOL!

[unlearner]

How does a Tesla coil work? I have always been curious but never took the time to learn how to build one.

[RadioAstronomer]

BTW, very nice coil you described. :-)

[TheRightGuy]

My Tesla coil was more conservative. The secondary was a 2 inch diameter, 30 inch long mailing tube. I spent 7 hours winding the secondary with 36 gauge magnet wire. It looked like smooth copper foil. The capacitor was built with a stack of 12" mirror tiles. Spark gap with 10d nails. Primary with some 12 gauge wire stripped from spare Romex. A 15,000 volt neon transformer was used to excite the primary. I powered it up inside an 8 X 8 foot bedroom at a friend's house. The snaky violet discharges went all the way to the walls. After days of work, the total run time was under 5 minutes. Too much RFI.

You need to contact JimRob and volunteer for the ZOT team!