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

[Amanda Wasielewski <amanda@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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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