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[TCML] A strange request: build me a Tesla coil?




Hi there,

Have posted on this list a couple times because I'm trying to realise an art project which utilises Tesla coils and various pieces of the history surrounding Nikola Tesla.

I'm based in London in the UK...

I originally wanted to stage a kind of Tesla coil demonstration (which I still hopefully would like to do) but I'm running into problems securing the venue I want... I also want this piece to be in my degree exhibition coming up the first week of June (I'm a postgrad student at UCL). My problem is that I don't have time to learn how to build a Tesla coil in the next few months (it would be ideal, obviously if I did have the time or the capacity to build one, but I unfortunately don't) and I would really like have one present in the exhibition. The piece consists of 2 neon signs which I have had build so that they don't have any wires or other connections and are free standing on transparent acrylic bases. I would like to light them up with a Tesla coil for the exhibition, and I was wondering how much it might cost if someone was willing to build a coil for me that would at least momentarily be able to light up both signs - also, I have a bunch of parts that are kind of out of commission which I could either give you in return for your help (in addition to whatever monetary compensation) or you could possible use in the construction - the transformers are apparently broken and i have no idea how to fix them but most of the other necessary components (at least the big ones) I have... The other option would be if someone in the UK would allow me to borrow their Tesla coil for a couple weeks in June... I could turn it on for a bit each day during the exhibition...

Hope someone might be interested in helping! Also, am planning on attending the Tesla event in the UK in March, so hopefully see the UK tesla coilers there!

Cheers,
Amanda

Here's a description of my project:

Full Disclosure

On Wednesday, February 3 1892, Nikola Tesla was invited by the Royal Society to give a lecture in London to the preeminent English scientists of the time including Lord Kelvin, Sir William Crookes, J.J. Thomson and Sir John Ambrose Fleming. In this lecture, he talked about his recent advances in wireless transmission of electrical power, thrilling the audience with the implications and potential of a world electrified without the use of wires. This would be the last time he would share a full disclosure of his inventions due to the increasingly cutthroat competition to profit from the latest electrical and radio inventions. The next day, February 4, Tesla went to visit Sir John Ambrose Fleming at University College London to discuss his and Fleming’s findings.

In a similar 2 day fashion, I would like to hold an event which will consist of a Tesla coil demonstration at Burlington House on the first day – the residence of the Royal Society in 1892. On the next day, as a current postgraduate student at University College London, I plan to meet with a professor from the Electronic and Electrical Engineering department to talk about the future of wireless (radio signals) and a professor from the Economics department to talk about technological innovation and capitalism.

‘Wardenclyffe’ and ‘Trelowarren’

In the demo, the Tesla coil would light up 2 neon signs which would read ‘Wardenclyffe’ and ‘Trelowarren’ as part of a wider project to resurrect and re-imagine Tesla’s failed attempt at building a wireless power/communication centre at Wardenclyffe.

In 1900, electrical scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla began planning, with the funding of J.P. Morgan, a tower and lab near Shoreham, Long Island. Wardenclyffe was named for the land’s owner James Warden who was building a resort community on the site and had given the land to Tesla in the hopes Wardenclyffe would become a “radio city.” The site’s close proximity to Manhattan was another major factor in its location. Tesla’s dream was not only to facilitate transatlantic wireless communications from the tower but also to supply free, safe, wireless electricity to the surrounding area and, eventually, the world. Everything was in place and the building was in progress when J.P. Morgan withdrew funding. Morgan undoubtedly realised that Tesla intended to give away electricity for free and his investment, therefore, would not pay off. Without funding, Tesla was forced to leave Wardenclyffe unfinished.

Tesla claimed to have all the technical and scientific nous for the site to succeed, although most modern scientists speculate that Tesla’s plan would have been impossible. He also planned to have a second site, possibly on the southeast coast of England in Cornwall. The starting point of my project is in the imagining of this second site, which I have chosen to locate in Trelowarren, a contemporary luxury resort community in Cornwall based on green principles.

The crux of the project lies in the tragedy of Wardenclyffe’s incompletion in light of the revolutionary potential of the technology. At the centre of this tragedy is the misunderstanding of Tesla, who was a man so ahead of his time that it was suggested he was a space alien come to Earth or a wizard. The laissez-faire capitalist forces in the United States, via J.P. Morgan and other “Robber Barons”, effectively squashed the projects of a man who saw his inventions as a way to help humanity live richer lives rather than make him or his investors wealthy.

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