How to Build Your Own Musical Tesla Coil

Create amazing light shows with a Tesla coil.

The musical Tesla coil was named after it's inventor, Nikola Tesla. A Tesla coil is an extremely high voltage, transmitting device. As such, assembling and making music with a Tesla coil can be a dangerous activity and requires extreme caution when building. The sounds produced by the Tesla coil come from the high-voltage sparks created by the coil. In addition to the strange music made by Tesla coil, they also can be used to create impressive light shows.

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PVC pipe, 6-inch diameter
26 AWG enameled magnetic wire
Masking tape
Wire cutters
Drill
Copper tubing
Volt transformer
Spark gap
Volt capacitor
Electrical cord

Instructions

- 1
  
  Drill three holes into the side of the PVC pipe, about 2 inches above the bottom.
- 2
  
  Insert the enameled wire through one of the end holes that you drilled in Step 1. Weave it through the other two holes. Wrap the wire around the PVC pipe. About every 50 wraps, use a piece of masking tape to secure your wire in place. You will have approximately 200 wrappings of wire when you are finished.
- 3
  
  Wind your copper tubing into a helix shape. This will function as the primary coil of your Tesla coil. Do not let any of the coils touch each other as this will create an electrical short-circuit.
- 4
  
  Attach your volt transformer to an electrical cord. Hook the volt capacitor lead to the output lead of the volt transformer. Attach the lead of the capacitor to the spark gap. Hook the spark gap to the outer end of primary coil from Step 3. Attach the inner end of the primary coil to the other end of the spark gap.
- 5
  
  Create a secondary coil using the same method as the primary coil, using only about half as many wire wrappings. Attach the remaining lead from the electrical cord and transformer to the secondary coil.