Beginner Teslas

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <biomed-at-miseri.winnipeg.mb.ca>

Whelll.    I built my first coil 10 years ago when I was still a teen ager,
it was crude and very improvised, but with some work, it worked.    I
followed instructions from a book available from Information Unlimited that
I bought locally  "Build Your Own Lazer, phaser, ion ray gun"   it sounds
nasty, but there are lots of neet instructions in there for interesting
projects.   www.amazing1-dot-com  is there web site and the plans I followed
are BTC3 I believe.   They sell these plans for about $8.00 .  I used an
oil burning ignition transformer  10kv, 23mA  and capacitors mmc  from a
local electronics supply store that sold parts for fixing tv sets.  0.04 -at-
1600Vdc   I strung 8 in series --- a little risky voltage wise but it
worked.  The coil size , # of turns .....  I followed the instructions.

Also, if your local library has back issues of popular electronics, Radio
Electronics, or the more recent combined version  Poptronics, they run
instructions for Tesla coils too.   Good luck and have fun.  My little
coils spec was 250Kv  and I peaked it to 10 inches.

Shaun Epp
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Canada