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Re: Science Fair Project
From: Jim Lux[SMTP:jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net]
Sent: Friday, November 07, 1997 11:24 PM
To: Tesla List
Subject: Re: Science Fair Project
> ok, I'm 13 yrs old, and in 8th grade, and we got this science fair
project,
> and I'm thinking of making a tesla coil....I dont have much experience in
> this electronic hobby thing, but I looked at a bucha websites when I
found
> this....you people think I can make this tesla coil? I mean is it easy
> (not like simple easy, kinda of like a bit fraustrating, but not that
hard
> easy) and is it like VERY dangerous or do they [websites] just say that
to
> scare people.
You certainly won't be the first 13 year old to make a tesla coil. When I
was in 7th grade, a friend who was an 8th grader built a fairly impressive
coil (at least it was to me then, when I didn't know what I do now) that
was about 4' tall (wound on a 6" form) with glass plate caps and a single
static gap fed by a neon transformer. A truly inefficient design, but still
capable of mighty impressive sparks (about 3-4 ft). It cost him nothing for
parts, as he was able to scrounge everything. And, he made it to the Calif
state science fair with it.
Check out the material here and you can do much, much better than that.