Worlds southernmost Tesla coil

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

Original poster: "Peter Terren" <pterren-at-iinet-dot-net.au> 

I have been corresponding with Jon 
Edenberg   <mailto:jon_ede-at-mawson.aad.gov.au>jon_ede-at-mawson.aad.gov.au 
who is at Mawson base in the Antarctic and is constructing a 6 MOT TC.  He 
has a pretty remarkable backyard with the usual ice and penguins and 
stuff  and has sent me a lot of postcard like photos.  He normally lives in 
Australia not too far from me.  I've enclosed some excerpts from his emails.

Nov 25 2003 ..I've been a fan of HV for a long time. I've not built a 
proper Tesla coil yet, however have stuffed around with HV multipliers, a 
1000J coil gun with muzzle velocities approx 200m/s, a 5mW HeNe gas laser, 
and a few things like that.
I'm working away from home at the moment (home is  Lesmurdie (near 
Kalamunda), WA), down at Mawson Station in Antarctica. Will be here until 
early 2005 probably.
I'm looking at building a Tesla coil down here as we usually have the 
rather interesting condition of 0% RH as it's often so cold. The results 
should be interesting, however it all depends on how many bits I can scab 
from around the place. The ships don't come here very often....

Jan 14 2004 The photos of the camp site show how we live outdoors here 
where there are no field huts. On this particular night, we established a 
camp site close to the foot of one of the mountains. Luckily, there was an 
igloo here, already built a few days earlier by another field party. It was 
still in fairly good condition, (the main deterioration factor with these 
sorts of things being wind erosion), and I decided that I would sleep in 
this igloo as nobody else was particularly keen, I don't know why. Two 
people slept in the quad bivvys, which are small tents that are designed to 
be secured in between two quads, the wheels of which are dug into the snow 
/ ice. One of the guys decided to sleep in the pit that was left over from 
the ice blocks that were cut to make the igloo, and the other slept in a 
trench that he dug behind one of the quads. I took the photo when everyone 
was in 'bed', except myself of course. My last photo that night was of me 
holding the camera up in the igloo while in a sleeping bag. I was rugged up 
in three layers plus the sleeping bag on top of that, and the temperature 
was still 'fresh'. The wind was gusting to 50 knots overnight, with 
temperatures probably falling to about -10 degC. I had a pot with about 3 
litres of water inside the igloo next to me that was used for cooking, and 
also a 20L plastic jerry with drinking water. The pot and most of the jerry 
of water froze SOLID during the night. Admittedly I wasn't inspired by this 
when I woke up in the morning, however, that's all part of being here !

April 13 2004 How was your Easter ?
Mine was good, spent most of it making bits for the Tesla coil. We were 
going to head out on a field trip yesterday however the weather turned and 
we were “blizzed in”.
I’ve made the base and primary for the coil, and the 6” PVC for the 
secondary has been coated in polyurethane in prep for taking the secondary 
winding. I’ll make a jig so I can turn the PVC slowly on our big lathe to 
facilitate winding.
I’ve also made the transformer “box”, ready to take 6 MOTs.
As we don’t have any light dimmers suitable for driving the 5” grinder that 
I’m converting for the ARSG (this was the only grinder on station that I 
could use), I’ve had to make my own triac speed control circuit. Luckily, I 
managed to find some triacs, diacs, and all that sort of stuff here.
The TX oil is crystal clear – I don’t think it has ever been used, and it 
seems unlikely that it has been mixed with other oils, although I will 
still heat it to boil off moisture, petrol etc, then test it with HV, and 
look for any particulate matter from the drum in which it was stored.
I also rolled the tank cap yesterday, yet to make the PVC casing.
So, everything is going well at this stage, progress at last !!!!
Will keep you informed…..
Take care, Jon.

Cheers
Peter (Tesla Downunder)
<http://tesladownunder.iinet-dot-net.au>http://tesladownunder.iinet-dot-net.au