"Twin Solid State Musical Tesla coils playing Mario Bros theme song at the 2007 Lightning on the Lawn Teslathon sponsored by DC Cox (Resonance Research Corp) in Baraboo WI. The music that you hear is coming from the sparks that these two identical high power solid state Tesla coils are generating. There are no speakers involved. The Tesla coils stand 7 feet tall and are each capable of putting out over 12 foot of spark. They are spaced about 18 feet apart. The coils are controlled over a fiber optic link by a single laptop computer. Each coil is assigned to a midi channel which it responds to by playing notes that are programed into the computer software."
My little Tesla coil can do about a 6-inch spark in a dry room. The corona in a dark room is about the size of a basketball. The secondary is wound on 1-foot piece for 4-inch PVC pipe. The primary is supported on wooden pegs around the secondary. They sit on a wooden box that holds the spark gap and the capacitor I made of copper sheet and glass plates. It is driven with a neon sign transformer. It isn't proper tuned to resonance so I have to add insulation in the air space between the primary and secondary by stuffing bread wrappers in the space.
It can dimly light a small fluorescence light bulb held near it, and I have an ion powered spinner that I can put on the top knob so it can twirl around. Everyone should have a Tesla coil. Rather than use neon sign transformers, the serious boys use utility pole power transformers. I'd like to know what is driving the coils in the video. A 12-foot spark would be fun to see.
