[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc5SFMxTzyI&w=580]

[Steve Ward] showed us his Tesla coil project which looks very much like a video game weapon. The hand-crafted masterpiece really packs a punch, able to throw off fat white arcs or a bit less threatening bolts of purple plasma. The video above is noisy and dark, but the look at the electronics in the backpack (holy huge capacitors batman!) and the quick functional demo are both more than worth posting. Unfortunately we didn’t get audio of the gun in action so you’ll have to image those sound effects.

The rig is powered by a 5Ah lithium battery which provides the 60V that gets boosted to 400V. The giant caps already mentioned store about 2k Joules (we love it how [Steve] can’t say that 2,000 Joule figure without beaming with joy). This project is the most advanced version of the prototype we saw a few years ago in Kansas. If you want to see more of what these guys are up to head over to their homepage.