First UK Teslathon - Corby, May 30th 1998

Many thanks to Alan Sharp for organising this excellent event - I think we were all surprised how many other like-minded enthusiasts there were in the UK. Hopefully this is the first of many UK Tesla events to come - why should the Americans have all the fun! See http://www.tcbouk.org.uk/ for more info on UK teslathons past and future.

Unfortunately it was a very sunny day, so the ambient light was a bit high to get good spark photos. The pictures below are in approximately chronological order. If anyone else has any good photos or other information, please let me know and I'll put a link to them here.

Alan Sharp's Jacob's Ladder and coil. This coil was also demonstrated with a solid-state driver.

Julian Green's pole-pig coil, with washing-machine motor high-speed rotary gap. The banshee-like whine as it spun up, and the corresponding high spark rate were truly terrifying! When this coil was running, sparks could also be seen jumping from Alan's coil over six feet away!

Greg Hunter's coil, (left) being goaded into biting a fluorescent tube.

My coil. Pity I didn't notice the white background when I positioned the camera! Strangely the coil worked better here than it's ever done at home - maybe I need a better ground. (Centre) lighting up some Argon. (Right) another CD bites the dust.

Viv Watts' coil - a masterpiece in Perspex (=Acrylic/Plexi)

Martin Dale's coil - biggest sparks of the day.

(left) Foil dish with sharp side flaps cut & folded out, being spun by force of corona streamers. (Right) Martin's tiny coil.

Corona from a long bare wire, terminated by 'electric chair'.   Afterwards, I wondered what this would look like using razor wire, or maybe tinsel - anyone like to try it?. The result of attempting to replace the chair with some pipe insulation is shown at the bottom of the page.

(Left) Bob Golding's coil, with capacitor ready to be placed in plastic cooler box at bottom of picture. (Right) Nick Slaymaker's Information Unlimited BTC-3 kit coil.

Tim Davy's beautiful fibreglass toroids. The top one is heavy copper plated, the other covered with individually custom-cut foil pieces.

The only casualties - (left) CD fried with 6KV by Steve Rodway. (right) It was concluded that expanded foam pipe insulation is NOT a good material for insulators!