I'll never forget the day, some 40 or so years ago, when I built my first Tesla coil. I had nothing but written instructions on how to build it that I had clipped from an old magazine. I used an old 110volt chainsaw blade sharpening motor to fabricate a rotating stop gap. Ten (6) oz Coca-Cola bottles I used to make capacitors with. For an emergency overload spark gap, I used two pewter figurines. One was a traditional wizard character holding over his head like he was challenging God, a long staff. The other was a lizard hominoid grasping a sword pointed toward the sky. When voltage spikes occurred, which was often, the electrical discharges that were destined to burn out the 12,000volt neon sign transformer I used to power the coil, would safely discharge from either staff or sword to a grounding point. Without any adjustments to anything, I got three to five foot of brilliant arcs visible in daylight. When operating in the dark, there were hundreds of arc streamers, not visible in daylight, that literally enveloped the room. After realizing that these smaller arc streamers had been using me as a ground all along, I decided to try and make friends with the large arcs. I gradually moved closer to the three to five foot long arcs and they did exactly as I predicted. The large arcs started discharging into me. The sensation of being struck with so much electrical current I wouldn't call painful but neither were they pleasurable. Uncomfortable would be an accurate description. The basement shop I was in had fluorescent lighting. I had to remove all the fluorescent tubes as every time the Tesla Coil was energized all the fluorescent tubes would light up when switched off. I performed many experiments with that Tesla Coil. I learned that holding something metallic in my hand as the large arcs struck it instead of directly striking my bare hand, completely eliminated all discomfort previously felt when being struck directly. I also found that by holding a fluorescent tube in one arm while moving my other hand closer to the toroid, acted upon the tube like a rheostat. The closer my other hand got to the toroid the brighter the tube illuminated. I found that when the long arcs were striking me, reaching over and touching someone else caused both of us to experience a much more uncomfortable sensation than taking direct strikes. The only time that I received and severe shock was when I made the mistake of getting too close to one of the transformer leads. Though heavily insulated, the voltage was more than the sufficient to arc through the wire's insulation. What really surprised me about my Tesla Coil was how loud it was and how much it smelled. I would often get headaches while running the coil. Once I installed an exhaust fan to remove the ozone I no longer got headaches. Later I found out that the ozone headaches were nothing compared to the soft x-rays I received while operating the coil.

Great to hear people who seem to really know their subject go into some of the technical details of their builds.

14:55 "if we charge this thing all the way up it would easily put a hole through the ceiling...we've learned that from experience" - that got a good laugh out of me.

These guys know their shit! Really gave allot of good information, not sure the interviewer understood it all but it was very useful.

Are you aware that your closed caption is reading TESTICLE instead of TESLA? Caused quite a hoot in the education department here.

Arc attack does a great job at demonstrating what can be done with High Voltage. One of many incredible things! They are based out of my town: Austin, Tx!

Wow, the cliff note mechanics of a Tesla Coil were explained really well.

7:30 DC? You're using Tesla's most famous invention with his enemy's direct current? Blasphemy! ;)

6:34 > WE have our brother John who is our safety operator... > *something sparks off and explodes*

"He is our safety operator" *strip explodes violentely* :D

I built a Tesla coil 3 feet tall in high school about 1966. It was a lot of fun to impress my friends. The arc would puncture right through the glass on a light bulb. I only would run it for a few minutes at a time because it knocked out TV reception (pre cable) for a couple of blocks and the ozone became noxious quickly.

Great interview with such concise qualitative narratives by the guys being interviewed.

A true Tesla coil doesn't need a wall plug. It absorbs energy directly from our atmosphere.

That guy is so much smarter than he looks.

According to their website ArcAttack are going to be at the Bay Area Maker Faire this weekend (San Mateo, May 17,18). I definitely want to see them perform. Kudos and many thanks to Norm for bringing us this video.

it's kind of nice to have a guest who shuts down some of norm's shit

Very interesting video thank you for the hard work Mr. Chan.

A satisfying and detailed description, excellent.

Smart of them to use fibre optics for communicating with the coils, if they used twisted pairs or any solid metal wiring, it would not be able to communicate at all thanks to the EMI's produced.

Awesome video! Very interesting to learn about the technology behind the act.

6:16 I didn't see the first time I watched this, the fluorescent lights on the ceiling flashing to the arcs

Man, those are some smart dudes. Never heard of them before but I am definitely going to look them up

Fantastic video. Thanks for uploading. Love tesla coils. And odd sounds. Hell yeah.

All I think is Red Alert Tesla Tower

That was just way too awesome!!!

That was very interesting. Thanks!

Awesome amount of information here! Great questions asked 👍

I feel dumb. I'm just going to leave and go guess the last 3D printed Mystery Build.

Pretty good special effects. The CGI is very convincing.

I've watched Tesla coils being made but they took them off of youtube. They also had videos of magnetic generators that generated its own power and ran all by itself.

Awesome video!

Wow. These guys are great with Tesla coils. I'd like to see them add a few Van deGraaf generators and work with the Hutchinson effect. They would be great at it because they are so good at tuning their coils.

Austin has both 6th street, and alot of the best musicians out there. Now, these guys... I need to go back sooner than later...

This is beautiful

I love his practical knowledge of his subject. So much knowledge. I'd love to know his educational background. I wss a digital design engineer. And they have some digital control circuitry, but the resonant transformer high power circuitry is a big different. Beautiful.

What do we need to adjust in this set up to power a home?

When do we get to see and hear the coils in action?

10:09, I like how the parts to make one of these costs well over $5k but youre using a harbor freight $2 volt meter (free with a coupon) I know because I have one.

Beautiful!

Construction Complete.

I have no words how #cool this is. Music sounds #awesome . :D

This is amazing 👏

how do you deal with all the UV light from the flashes?

“Reverse of what a normal transformer would do” “Transformers can step up and down” “The primary coil and the secondary coil. How are they connected and how do they interact?” “So they’re actually not connected.” Casually walking around in background of other interviewer 7:36 eating.

Im amazed by this guys, GOATS

Seems with the amount of emi and spurious emission using microcontrollers in or near to control it would be challenging.

i made a little version of this but it only able to glows led"s .... through this .. can you suggest me why is it this..

The best part was 14:40 where he said and this aluminium electromagnet may crush your head 3,2,1 😂😂😂

I was wondering how they got midi data to the coil in one piece, as I figured a standard coaxial cable would recieve far too much interference. This is where fiber optic comes in. useful info

Tesla coils not only sound awesome, but they LOOK awesome. C'mon the look like they're from the future.

Idk anything about electricity but you said that the coil overload and the energy gets out in the form of those lightnings but what happens when the two lightning connects to each other ? Where does the energy go ? And what would happend if you kept pushing those energies to each other to the limit ?

Okay but other than making music what makes a tesla coil useful? What is it used for?

Awesome !! Thumbs up :D Alex

very cool good show thanks

I have 2 degrees in engineering, and I only understood about 1/2 of what he was talking about :/

I would think that you could change the "Pitch" of the coil by oscillating or changing the length of the coil column. In other words in the coil could be moved up or down to change the Frequency of the arch at the time that its produced. It would also be more visually interesting to watch as the coils raise up then lower to produce different sounding notes as they are played. The longer the coil the difference in the magnetic field Stronger/Weaker the Higher/Lower sound produced at that time. It should still produce the same Arch effect but simply Tune the notes due to location on the coil by placement. Also enclosing the coil will help to better direct the magnetic filed/electron wave up out of the top of the coil to produce better sound. Not sure if I am explaining this correctly but that is how I see it working. As I said being more visually appealing, interesting to watch instead of just 2 coils on a stage arching at each other to the beat of music.

All the fun you can have with Freq drives.

My wife: But why though? Me: You wouldn't understand, It's arcing love

Very cool stuff. Question: How low can you go with a DC pulse. 3-4 Hz? Any iron in the core? Cheers...

how many watts do you need to power something like this?

16:05 "come at me bro" lol

Bobina de Tesla é sempre incrível. Abraço

"it's FAAAAAAIRLY complicated! First of all, we use MIDI files" Lololol I know there's way more too it, I'm not being an ass. That just gave me a giggle

Something sensible is created with passion.

Did you say the band that plays with tesla coils or testacles?

man that was sooo close to his ear. a few more inches and... this would have been the most metal video they ever made. science rocks

what are the transistors for?

Didn’t understand a single thing he was talking about but still cool

I would've been even happier if he just says he likes Tesla coils because its metal as fuck with that sweater :D

incase anyone is wondering ive learned that using one xor gate you can make an ocilator by applieing a constant voltage to one input and then atatching the output to the other input please give me any information if you try this as I have not done this yet I have just done it on powder toy which is a fluid sim game and is really cool I recommend it to anyone who likes to test electronics or other things.

That is so cool, I'm a Ham operator, X Military. Now what you do is change it up a little, If you add an antennae to the top of the coil say 100ft out in the air then The objective is to tune in to the 60 cycle energy that is everywhere visavee the power companies. you might need a little parallel capacitance on the coil to get to the 60 cycle range and start to receive the radiant power.

I wonder what their power bill looks like.

What would be the maximum number of synth "voices" someone could discern a tesla coil producing?

I really want to recreate that sound of the "distorted trumpets" would anyone have any background how to make that via synth ??

who needs a house alarm when you got this

Hilarious that the safety guy is doing his work with a beer at his work bench. :p

hey one way to stop copyright infringement since these coils produce massive EMI

I think it's funny how whenever the tesla coil guy points so does the host, like: "yeah, right, the-the bank of transistors, and yeah, the uh...capacitors hooked in series with the primary-- swirl-- I mean coil, yep. Right, I know exactly what he's talking about." What a puppet show these Tested gets are.

I just noticed "ark attack" is a play on words of "architect"

That was our homeschool science for the day!

Norm is so awkward.

I propose that any tricks involving changing magnetic fields to induce currents that in turn create opposing magnetic fields that repel objects like shooting the aluminium ring, tearing the can or just have a magnet fall slowly through a copper tube should be called... Lenz Flares.

So when you turn the aluminum ring into a elctro-magnet instead of you blasting it into the air isnt there a way to control the amount of current going to the coil so that it could float in the air?

haha, i saw arcattack at a rave in phoenix a few years back. shit was awesome.

Great video but every time you said Tesla coil fast I thought you were saying testicles :)

@ElectroBOOM ... Now that's an arc!

Hey, I have that same laptop! Cool.

so i can have a radar jammer, wireless electricity and kickass music in one device?

Any commercial use from all this trouble?

This video hurt my brain, so awesome though.

That was cool.

Well put into phase so that it can be used.

i know that for the electric car Tesla you need a charger with alot of amps for the car to charge faster, can you creata that charger youre self ? like a Diy ?

very cool

How do you match the first coil to the resonance of the second coil?

what happens if you take all of that and make it run in reverse?

Best video 😊

i really think these can be powered by solar panels and produce energy for rural/suburban areas

Cool! Tesla coil & Faraday cave ;o)

These guys are really good love it. I want to build the biggest tesla coil ever