Re: Why we build these things Was: Re: Tesla Coil Dream

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

Original poster: "Stephen Conner by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <steve-at-scopeboy-dot-com>

At 19:54 10/05/03 -0600, you wrote:
>Original poster: "Richard W. by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" 
><potluck-at-xmission-dot-com>
>
>
>But for me now it's the tinkering. And putting in SO much time and money
>into something that has no "practical" everyday use what-so-ever. I get,
>"Well? What's it for?" I've been telling them it keeps the pigeons off the
>porch. :)

That's exactly what I'm talking about! I was just wondering _how_ I came to 
get totally obsessed with a 100 year old invention that no-one has ever 
found a practical use for. Like many of you on TCML, I've enjoyed tinkering 
with electronics since an early age, which inspired me to study EE at 
university. Around that time I first saw spark photos of Tesla coils on the 
net, which inspired me to have a go for myself. I lit up my first coil in 
December of last year. Technically it was pretty poor, but I was still 
blown away by the noise, stink, and amazing light show. It also gave me a 
big buzz knowing that I was doing something bizarre and dangerous that 
maybe only a few thousand people in the world did.

I've been hooked ever since and I'm just about to start building my fourth 
coil. In those 5 months I have learnt an awful lot about resonance, EM 
fields, high-voltage design, pulsed power, capacitor technology, power 
electronics, and which salad bowls make good toploads :D All this knowledge 
(except maybe the salad bowl stuff) will help me in my job as an EE.

So I suppose for me the Tesla coil is an educational toy rather than an end 
in itself...

Steve C.