Capacitors

I just bought twenty 6000 volt capacitors at 2000 pico Farads. I'm planning on getting a 6000 volt power supply, so I'll need to run at least two in parallel, which reduces capacitance but increases the voltage rating. With 20 of them, I should achieve 10 nano Farads, which is quite a lot for this project I think. I'm suspecting that with a 6000 volt power supply, I'll be well under the one foot target, though I won't know for sure until I do quite a bit more math.

I've also found a nice stainless steel ball for the top of the secondary coil. Amazon sells them as obstructions to dog bowls for pets that over eat and eat too quickly. Since it's stainless steel, it should fit my conductive needs quite nicely; I may grind a flat surface on it so I can more easily mount it on top of the coil. It's 3.5 inches in diameter, so it's a quite nice size and should make a very attractive and effective top for the secondary coil, allowing huge charges to build up without dissipating, as a sharp surface would allow.

I think I'm going to mount the primary coil in balsa wood, or perhaps a thin pine; I've seen some designs that I really like floating around the internet. The secondary coil will probably be either PVC or cardboard, though if I find a lathed wooden rod, I'll certainly think about it, though I'll probably need to figure out how to run a grounding wire through it.

Circuits and Components

I've done a bit of research on Tesla coil circuits and such this week, and I'm pretty convinced that I can build a small unit for well under 100$, which is ideal. I think the diagram on this website is the one that I'll be using to create my coil; it's a layout that protects (by means of an inductor) the high voltage transformer.

High voltage transformers it turns out are readily available to neon lighting enthusiasts for close to 50$. The rest of the components (an inductor, line filter, spark gap, a huge capacitor, some high quality wires, a grounding plate and a coil should fit into the other 50$.

Power supply fail

I thought i was going to be able to use this nice moderate power supply for my project, its a nice little 300 watt desktop power supply. It came in the case i used to build my computer, but i believe its a dc unit, and i just discovered that i will need an ac power supply for this to work. Sad. My goal is to get a foot of arc at 70 degrees. I'm going to need to do some math. Math and physics.

Tesla Coil

Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the blog of a guy who is going to try to not electrocute himself in the next few weeks. My goal is to make a working Tesla coil and post updates on my progress, take pictures of my burned flesh as I make mistakes and the like. In theory, I'll be able to trim my power supply down and put in some fuses and the like to prevent something truly lethal, but that's all for later. For now, welcome! If you see me doing something stupid (besides toying around with 40000 volts) please tell me. I'd rather not die from this.