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For comprehensive visitor statistics (including you!), click the icon.
visitors to both sites
since Feb 2003.
Comments? Queries? Criticisms? Done something similar?
Thanks to financial donors to the site and their interests:
Dr Ranon Udkoff
Lyle Palmer Bob Ziegenhals
Dr Nagi
Hatoum Diskojockey
Oliver de Peyer
Stephen Rosman
Lacklustre
Jon Singer Maxim Magazine
A J TJP, USA
www.datamancer.net
Ward
Christensen
Wonder what this site looked like in 2003?
Peter Terren |
An Australian site detailing almost 200 high voltage and other projects such as...   (click to enlarge) Tesla coil sparks (above). Awesome to be near.
Before you go further this huge page has 150 photos
which are downloading as you read this.
Or check out a 16,000 Joule 12,000 volt
capacitor bank for hugely
powerful discharges. Half a gigawatt of peak power used for
Can crushing,
coinshrinking,
exploding wires
and many other experiments. Perhaps look at the
Tesla inspired Christmas tree, the
Red Alert Tesla coil,
Jacob's Bi-ladder, making
liquid oxygen, Discovery Channel videos of my stuff,
my new
record spark length of 11
feet,
multicolored sparks,
the Tesla Envy video - up VERY close to
huge sparks, Dalek cage,
swimming with 100,000 volts,
video of car theft protection,
"Eye of Sauron"
and a sparks for beginners
project with only 3 components.
Favourite pictures: (out of over 1300 in this site)
Above, a Tesla Xmas tree made of Tesla coil sparks That's how we do it in Oz. Merry Christmas.
Above, the recreation of the Red Alert Tesla coil using a real one. My most complicated photo.
Above, the Tesla trooper from Red Alert in action with a real Tesla coil.
Above shows "Tesladownunder car theft protection". You must see the video as well for a laugh.
Above shows a Tesla coil with rotating long breakout point looking dramatic on time exposure of 22 seconds. The "Eye of Sauron". The two photos above have been seen by perhaps 500,000 people worldwide now since Feb 2007 and resulted in well over 100,000 hits to my site. My ISP ran out of bandwidth and had to shut me down for a day after 330 GB transfer. It was featured on some big sites and hundreds of blogs and was also popular in Russia and Japan. (For printing, 6 megapixel uncropped versions of most photos are available at a small charge - email me).
Above, the "Aura of Sauron". It looks unreal but there is no "photoshopping" anywhere on this website. All my photos are single exposures with very little post processing ie real photos. The effects come from doing things during the exposure which can be striking particularly if the source of sparks have shifted or rotated as above.
Above, the Dalek cage. Just what you need to get up close and personal with lotsa volts. And you can even use a phone in it.
Above: How about red sparks?
Above: There are lots of other colors to see in multi-colored sparks. These are single photographic exposures through clear and colored filters in turn.
Above, swimming with 100,000 volts. Sure it's safe. Tin hats protect you. Only do this at home. See the Discovery Channel video 5:14 mins for the full details.
Above: The ring of 'antivirus' protection done with 60,000 volt sparks.
Above, exploding the Easter Bunny - because I can (and the foil wrapping is conductive).
Above: The capacitor bank is discharging 3 kJ in to some steel wool for more impressive sparkler effects. See the second Discovery Channel video 3:45 mins for this in real time.
Above: Lots of spark pictures from 30,000 to 100,000 volts. I like sparks ...
Above, Tesla coils with spark from 2 inches (5cm) to 11 feet (3.3m). Seems odd that my longest spark photo is 26 th photo down.
Above, some unusual solid state Tesla coils on the left using SIDACs instead of a spark gap, centre using a Royer circuit and on the right a vacuum tube based coil and its sparks.
The big capacitor bank is running at huge powers now and is great for exploding wires.
Above, from left to right: an electronic art piece, homemade computer plotter and a solar model car.
Above on the left is my new lifter with neon lights installed. Center shows a run outdoors and the right shows the installation in a science museum.
Above on the left is a much stronger lifter running on 80 kV lifting its own weight. The right photo shows 4.5 inch sparks if overdriven.
Above left is my magnetic levitation display running, centre is a coil levitated and on the right is hydrogen/chlorine ignition at the back of my model boat with magnetohydrodynamic drive.
Above left is aerogel, the worlds lightest solid - "frozen smoke" and right is the bizarre ferrofluid.
On the left above is my home made Nitrogen laser with the beam in Fluorescein. The center picture shows the Nitrogen laser diffraction pattern. The laser is ultraviolet but shines up with a blue fluorescence on white paper. The right picture shows green 5 mW diode and red HeNe 10 mW beams grazing the camera.
On the left above, is the violet laser out of a Blu-ray player made into a laser pointer. The center photo shows a hologram from this unit. On the right is a beam through Fluorescein, tonic water and Rhodamine showing green, blue and orange fluorescence in turn.
On the left is my son with a blue laser burning the garage roof. (Actually a small alcohol flamethrower). The center photo shows a real blue laser parallel to a HeNe red beam. On the right is a pattern from a laser beam modulated by two mirror galvanometers.
On the left: "Beam me up, Scotty" to far away galaxies... The argon laser beam is modulated by two mirror galvanometers. The center photo shows the dramatic effects by making a smoke tunnel with a circular beam. On the right is a pattern from the beam through a diffraction grating showing the multiple spectral lines.
Above left shows the 800 amp spotwelder flash. Centre is the flyback supply. Right is a battery operated Candy box HV supply using old camera and TV parts.
Above left is liquid nitrogen in the pool. Center photo shows the dangerous stunt of putting my hand in liquid nitrogen. Right photo shows the gear I use to make liquid oxygen using liquid nitrogen.
Above left is a banana hammer for hammering in small nails. The banana becomes hard and brittle at liquid nitrogen temperatures. On the right is a flower made glass like and brittle.
Above left is tonic water under UV light. Centre is a scorpion fluorescing under UV and on the right a handful of uranium glass marbles.
To the left is the completed railgun. Centre is a Handpowered coilgun and to the right a Spud gun.
Above. Can crushing with magnetic induction upgraded and now tears the can apart with 40,000 A.
Above. The bigger can crusher at currents of 80,000 A will tear it in thirds, or in a spiral depending on the shape of the work coil.
Above, the technical stuff about measuring the very high current pulses. The center photo shows an early coin shrinking attempt and the right photo shows amazing shrinkage of a 1 yen coin. You can still see the Japanese characters miniaturized. Bonsai for coins.
Above, Magneforming is the use of extreme magnetic fields to form a metal sheet over an object.
Above, rewiring a microwave oven into a useful HV supply. Power supply 1971 style. The right photo is actually my most impressive high power arc at over 2 feet long from an x-ray transformer.
Above, a Jacob's ladder and a Jacobs Bi-ladder. On the right, some sparks viewed end-on.
Above, strange behavior of high voltage. Woodburn fractals, the arc-repellant screwdriver and plasma in a magnetic field.
Can you work out what these have to do with high voltage or magnetism? Left, center or right for the answers.
More strange behavior of high voltage. Electrostatic levitation of non conductive (deionised) water and arcs onto a water surface.
High speed photos of Tesla coil sparks showing detail of events in time after the spark (left), before the main spark (center) and details of the polarity of each trailing spark. Ordinary photos perhaps, until you consider that the time difference between each spark in the left photo is 5 millionths of a second.
One volt can be impressive too (at 533 amps). Spinthariscope made from around the house materials to view alpha particle activity. Internals of a 120 kV x-ray head.
Above is a Geiger counter registering high counts from a Uranium ore sample. The graph shows background radiation counts from my home updated 6 hourly.
The amazing Marinov motor (two ball races and an axle) at 1223 RPM and 165 A. On the right is an incredibly simple homopolar motor which runs at 5000 RPM and takes seconds to assemble.
On the left is a magnetic sensor array. Dull at rest but gives on the center and right gives interesting mapping of unusual fields on movement.
Above shows a vortex ring launcher. Lots of fun and a unique opportunity for basketball players.
More vortex ring shots giving unusual effects like the "UFO" in the center. Also orange smoke.
More unusual spark effects from a very large light globe and a spark playing over a magnet in water. A laser scanner gives interesting effects.
Photos above show a 5 second exposure of a sparkler attached to an electric drill.
Photos above show a 5 second exposures of two different types of LED arrays giving unusual effects.
Above: Comet McNaught photo which made it to the cover of the Chinese astronomical journal and a few other places.
Above, meet some friendly visitors to our rural property .
Videos Discovery Channel episode 1 shown Sept 4, 2007 in Canada. Runs 5:14 mins and includes smoke rings, electric shocks, capacitor discharges and sparks in the pool. If you have a fast broadband link then view it direct in higher resolution from the Discovery Channel here otherwise click the video below.
Above is the Gold Remi Award from the Houston International Film festival awarded to Discovery Channel Canada for this first video segment. Dean Lomax was the cameraman and Dennis Porter the producer. There are about 5000 entries and about 1000 winners in hundreds of categories. In this pdf winner list search for "electricity" will take you to the entry. Discovery Channel episode 2 shown Sept 11, 2007 in Canada. Runs 3:45 mins and includes capacitor discharges, big TC construction. If you have a fast broadband link then view it direct in higher resolution from the Discovery Channel here. Click the video below.
Discovery Channel episode 3 shown Nov 21, 2007 in Canada. Runs 5 mins and includes the big TC in a big domed building. Click the video below.
Discovery Channel episode 4 shown Dec 20, 2007 in Canada. Runs 5 mins and is about the Tesla Christmas tree. If you are in Canada (only) you can watch it here. Click the video below.
My Videos
Tesla Envy 2007
Tesla Car Thief protection
More details on the making of the video here.
Magnetic levitation showing the magnet rotating in the air (0.6 M MPEG video) and a Tesla coil in action (0.5 M MPEG video). This is a rather technical site. The glossary may help.
Want a display? I now have 5 running displays in science museums or physics departments in Western Australia. I am happy to provide advice, contribute to, or construct displays relevant to my areas of expertise for local use. By their nature many displays need ongoing servicing so local Western Australia is probably the only feasible area. Costs are reasonable and open to discussion. This is not my day job so it helps if it gets my interest and has a challenge. My email address is pterren@iinet.net.au
Disclaimer
Tesladownunder in the media: Not the best site in the world but tryin' hard. Here's where I stand... Google PageRank 5 (0-10) ABC Newcastle radio
has an interview
here in 2008. My Tesla coil on a car
pictures account for 1% of
Google Tesla coil images
at least in the first 1000. Sept 2007
Photo Competition (Aug 2005 Sunday Times circ 365,000) Won a AUD$2000 Nikon D70s digital camera. There were 5000 entries in 2 categories with 40 photos published in each. See photo on left.
Photo Competition ACDSee picture software in 2003
Maxim Magazine (UK version above left) Dec 2007. It is a "men's magazine" and the cover is perhaps too saucy for my front page. Ok it's here (UK cover) NSFW. Also had different article in Czech Maxim with similar NSFW cover here (Czech)
German View magazine, above left, had a double page spread in 2008 and a Finnish Astronomy magazine used one of my twilight shots to demonstrate a crescent moon. I suppose I was the natural choice?
Left above, is the Metro newspaper page 3 article in the UK , Dec 7 2007 (1 million circulation) and on the right Spectrum.IEEE May 2007.
A Chinese book "Contemporary Art of Science and Technology" 2008 above contains some pics too. Other magazines have featured photos and articles including Zoo, Jafmate, Chinese astronomical journal and International comet quarterly. Hey, my photos are in 3 astronomical journals and I don't even have a telescope. This site has
1350 photos in 33 pages and is over 550 MB.
Donations
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June 2008. Check out the 
Above left is the YouTube version and right is the Windows Media
Player higher resolution version.
This
is dangerous stuff. Your first touch of live primary Tesla coil voltage (10,000
volts) has a good chance of being fatal depending on circuit paths and peak
current. The secondary voltage (500,000 volts) is less dangerous due to lower
currents but will still cause burns with less pain than low frequency current.
High voltage capacitors as used with the can crusher are even
more dangerous with many times a lethal charge. The capacitors from defibrillators are
actually designed to stop your heart.
