You’d be forgiven for assuming that a Tesla coil is some absurdly complex piece of high-voltage trickery. Clarke’s third law states that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”, and lighting up a neon tube from across the room sure looks a lot like magic. But in his latest Plasma Channel video, [Jay Bowles] tries to set the record straight by demonstrating a see-through Tesla coil that leaves nothing to the imagination.
Of course, we haven’t yet mastered the technology required to produce transparent copper wire, so you can’t actually see through the primary and secondary coils themselves. But [Jay] did wind them on acrylic tubes to prove there aren’t any pixies hiding in there. The base of the coil is also made out of acrylic, which lets everyone see just how straightforward the whole thing is.
Beyond the coils, this build utilizes the DIY high-voltage power supply that [Jay] detailed a few months back. There’s also a bank of capacitors mounted to a small piece of acrylic, and a clever adjustable spark gap that’s made of little more than a few strategically placed pieces of copper pipe and an alligator clip. Beyond a few little details that might not be obvious at first glance, such as grounding the secondary coil to a layer of aluminum tape on the bottom of the base, it’s all right there in the open. No magic, just science.
[Jay] estimates this beauty can produce voltages in excess of 100,000 volts, and provides a demonstration of its capabilities in the video after the break. Unfortunately, before he could really put the new see-through coil through its paces, it took a tumble and was destroyed. A reminder that acrylic enclosures may be pretty, but they certainly aren’t invulnerable. With the value of hindsight, we’re sure the rebuilt version will be even better than the original.
If you’d rather not have your illusions shattered, we’ve seen plenty of complex Tesla coils to balance this one out. With witchcraft like PCB coils and SMD components, some of them still seem pretty magical.
Fantastic build ! great video ! …no transparent copper ? It’s just a matter of time…..it wasn’t that long ago that Scotty showed up in San Francisco and left the formula for transparent aluminum 😁 (While Chechov and Uhura were looking for Noooklear Wessels 😄)
It grates to this day to hear a scotsman pronounce it “Aluminum”
You mean Al-u-mini-ummm ?
Looks like I’m adding yet another project to my never-ending list of cool things to build
So the next iteration will include anti-gravity so it doesn’t fall on the floor?
“No magic, just science.”
Invisible magic. Who knew?
A former colleague once told me;
“All electronics are FM! [effing] Magic!”
Another ego video featuring a grotesque gesticulating character diluting the information. At least, there is no ukulele soundtrack.
Dulling Banjos never detracts.
Arcs to fingers aren’t good for the nerves in the skin surface. +1 for RF burns to the tactile sensors in his most useful tools.
Which can lead to cancers 20 years down the road,
or so I’ve heard.
Dislike the presentation style if you want, can’t say I’m a huge fan of this style of video either. But If you want all the Mathmatics behind it, history of the concepts – the information, then read about it – books and papers are a far better source for the hard science and history than video. But the information in it seemed accurate (I did skip chunks) and his presentation style is what some people want.
The build itself is really nice, clean look, very functional, well worth documentation.