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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."
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!