Building a 500,000 Volt Tesla Coil

It all starts with this. The white part is 4.25" white (not black) PVC drain pipe. There are exactly 1000 turns of number #22 gauge magnet wire. Every turn the wire touches and there are no overlaps of wire on top of wire. - Wire overlap would cause a catastrophic failure.

Click any image to enlarge

The bracket is attached to the primary coil as shown in the pictures. The (PVC tube) had to be drilled, be careful not to drill close to the wires. Brackets go at each end of the tube and the ends of the wire are attached to the brass screws. (Brass or plastic only)

To make sure that you have everything, I recommend laying it all out as obsessively compulsive as possible. For me this is a snap!

It helped, as I realized I was missing a few screws, Ah-HA! (no pun)

There are so many little parts this is where you start to think, how long will this really take me.

I know it doesn't look like Plexiglas, that's because it comes with a protective sticker-like coating that you peal off after you cut and shape it. So first you drill 8 holes exactly the same thickness as your copper (primary) wire then snip off the extra. The copper tube should snap or click into place if you do this right. Then you make 3 more just like this. You hands will hurt after snipping all these holes so wear some gloves.

These are called choke coils. Essentially they protect the transformers from the back spike from the primary 10,000 volt capacitor spike.

They are clear PVC tubes with wire wound with a space in the middle. The are wire clips at the top and the bottom for connecting the leads to.

Here is the wooden base used to support everything. It's 16" X 16" and it's easiest to lay everything on it, drill the holes then attach everything. Machine screws and nuts where used to anchor everything down.

Remember click any image to enlarge

The spark gap is just that, a big open gap in the wires that lead from the high voltage power to the coils. The idea is that electricity can flow through broken wires, unless it's high high voltage. Something like 50,000 volts is required to jump a spark 1". So the spark gap requires a specific amount of voltage before the "gap" is closed by the spark jumping from one side to the other. By the way it gives off dangerous UV radiation, just like a welder, other than that everything is fine.

Oh, currently the gap is set at 4/16" - that ain't chicken feed.

Winding the primary coil is a snap compared to the secondary coil. The secondary coil (done perfect) can take a weekend by itself. The picture on the left shows the coil snapped into place. The picture on the right shows that I removed the coil after winding it, to then remove the plexiglas protective cover. This was to allow me to bend and twist the coil without messing up the plexi.

Coils wound, plexi is removed, the coil is snapped back in place. The sheet still isn't fully transparent in this photo because the bottom protective sticker is still on the plexi. Just wait. The photo on the right shows that the lead wires are installed. The white wire is permanent and the red wire is a clip because it can move along the coil to help with resonate tuning of the primary to the secondary. Long story.

Adding the parts to the base for attaching. The 4 transformers, the grounding metal plate, the 10 amp fuse and the main 3-plug power cord. (However I render the 3-plug a 2-plug by not using the grounding wire. I don't want to risk the secondary hitting my house ground with half a million volts as I like my TV.

To install the choke to the wooden base I screwed to the wooden base a PVC cap (left photo) then I just stuck the choke into the cap (right photo). This works great because I can pull the choke off easily if need be.

Finally, the grounding plate, the transformers and the choke are installed. This just leave the 10,000 volt capacitor (the big white tube in the photos) and the spark gap unit to install.

Note: the 10,000 volt capacitor is like a stick of electrical dynamite.

Also, in these photos you can see the high output fan, this fan blows on the spark gap to try and keep it cool

All the major parts installed. Next up, the wiring. I'm not going to photo document that part as it sucks. I might put the diagram for wiring up at some point. Note: I chose to wire for 110 vac at 60 cycles, instead of 220.

"You know 220, 221, whatever it takes!"

You've read the book, now see the movie!

Make sure you have the Quicktime plugin installed to play these. Or get it here.

Click the picture to play the movie or click here to play movie one and here to play movie two.

Get the plans here!