Musical Tesla Coils Perform Zelda

heychris writes "You've gotta love the Chicago Tribune's story on Tesla Coil hobbyists from the first sentence. 'Under a starry Saturday sky behind a Lake Zurich warehouse, three men unload a small flamethrower, electric cabling, neon-tube "light sabers," about 80 pounds of chain mail and two 7-foot devices that look like monster-movie props.' So what does one do with 1.6 million volts and a Tesla coil or two? Play 110dB music, of course."

Comments

I like this one

[TimeElf1]

There are likely only about 1,000 Tesla coil hobbyists worldwide.

There are quite a few more of us around as the Pupman mailing list http://www.pupman.com/ and the Geek Group http://www.thegeekgroup.org/ can attest.

Re:Saw this

[Sly-Guy]

Based on chatting with them when they did Penguicon in Michigan they use a control circuit to turn the coils on and off at a specific rate. This allows them to use the actual lightning breaks per second to generate sound. E.g. 128 breaks per second roughly equals a sound at 128 Hz.

When they were coming out here they asked us to provide 2 note MIDI files for playing. If I remember correctly the computer uses MIDI to drive the control circuitry that is fed optically (to avoid coupling to the coil itself) to the drive electronics in the coil. So not so much pre-programmed as interpreted.

Really neat technology they have put together and darned loud! I wonder if they ever built the other two notes they talked about building at Penguicon. Hearing 4 of those going in harmony would be sweet!

Re:Tesla Coil recipe using an old CRT

[slimjim8094]

I can't speak to the rest of this - though it sounds quite dangerous - but DON'T FUCK AROUND WITH A CRT UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING

There's banks of capacitors in there that, if charged up, will kill you in an instant, if you're unlucky or stupid enough to bridge one. They hold about 30kV. If you want to try this, make sure you leave the TV unplugged for a few days, to drain the caps - or properly discharge it. In theory, you can ground the anode - but I'm not qualified to ensure that's safe. I can't speak for the rest of it, but it sounds fairly dangerous as well.