Tesla Coils blast out roaring, buzz-saw discharges of high voltage streamers that writhe and dart about in the air like living tentacles. The barrage of artificial lightning bolts will coalesce and strike any conducting object (including people) within range. Although the bite from a small Tesla Coil is usually fairly harmless, the strike of a large coil can be lethal.

Nikola Tesla designed the coils for experiments with wireless transmission of electrical energy. Hobbyists build them because they're so dramatic. Even today, Tesla Coils startle, amaze, and wow. One can imagine how crowds must have responded in Tesla's time, when electricity was a new and mysterious science.

Until recent years, Tesla Coils used primitive spark gaps to operate. Now, with new semiconducting components, more efficient coils can be made, and some of them can even reproduce music through the discharge! (STORMDRAGON relies on this effect to save lives.)

To learn more about Tesla Coils, including how to build them, please go to the Next Page.

Loyd Ritchey's horizontal Tesla Coil at the Science Place, Dallas

Ritchey's Conical Coil on stand

Conical coil producing 10-foot streamers

     Bob Golka's huge Tesla Coil       discharging 20' streamers

    Golka's coil, Wendover, Utah

    Ritchey's portable Tesla Coil     capable of 6-foot streamers