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Re: Tesla coil inside sculpture

Original poster: Jim Lux <jimlux@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

At 08:02 AM 7/20/2005, you wrote: 
Original poster: "Ethersmith" <siveya@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Greetings. I have an idea for a HV sculpture which I would like to build.
However I don't know exactly how it will act once built. So I thought I
would submit the idea in hopes of eliciting a little feedback from the
experts.

I would like to build a mobile tesla coil (onboard a modified car) that
operates entirely inside a cage like sculpture of a brain (on top of the
car). The brain will be six feet across at its smallest diameter and made
out of copper tubing. It will be built upon a 4X8 foot 3/4" piece of
plywood. Mounted to the middle of this plywood will be the 2 foot tall
secondary coil and torriod. The idea is for the coil to arc to the brain.
Ideally the car will be mobile which means the coil cannot be grounded to
earth without dragging heavy chains under the car.

Questions maybe some of you can answer:

If the coil is not grounded to earth, can it still operate grounded only to
the brain cage?


You bet... that's like running the coil inside a Faraday cage, which is almost the ideal situation.



If the coil is not grounded to earth, can I isolate the brain cage from
being grounded to the car, for safety purposes?

I'd connect the cage to the car, for safety purposes. Floating devices have all sorts of problems.



If it will operate, and If the coil is not grounded to earth, will it create
more RF disturbance? Thanks


No.



Thanks for your thinks!

--Ethersmith

Something to be aware of is that it may not be reasonable to expect the sparks to evenly distribute themselves to the various parts of the brain, mostly because the distance isn't the same.

It might require a bit of experimentation with the exact placement of the brain tubing and the coil within the brain to get a pleasing aesthetics. But, hey, that's what differentiates art from engineering, no?

BTW, the tubing doesn't have to be copper.