It would look neat but would never work. Bonus: photo of one of our coils! (at bottom)
Author: roymeo
AC to DC article
I stumbled across this article from Wired and though it appropriate for the blog:
How Do You Charge Your DC Phone With an AC Source?
Twin solid-state singing coils
This weekend we had a great shop day working on a lot of different projects. One of those was finally putting together our solid-state coils and hooking them up to a Midi source (in this case an old keyboard with a Midi out).
The keyboard itself isn’t making any sound, all the audio is generated by the sparking electricity.
Here’s a little later in the day with a bit more musicality:
Lightning up in the Mission
Omega Recoil got the call to perform for a company party for Little Giant, a lighting and grip company, in the Mission in San Francisco. Not hidden away in a building somewhere in the Mission, but outside almost in the middle of the street, on their parking pad between the building and the sidewalk. Some of the neighbors stopped by to watch the performances; some people said they came from several blocks away once they heard the tell-tall sound of a Tesla coil firing up.
(These were my first attempts to record anything with the Vine app.)
Omega Recoil on the move
We moved from the Naval shipayard to a new shop in West Oakland. That seemed like a good excuse to call up some friends and throw some sparks. Since we weren’t ‘on stage’ this night, we were able to put some special members of our family and friends into the suit.
This is either Tansy or Kiki in the suit.
You can see the visitor’s cage in the background of the video and below. This allows us to bring members of the audience in up close quickly and easily.
We really like to have the chance to play around like this, it gives us a low-pressure time to try out new things like the cage to see how it would work in a real show.
Or, sometimes it’s just fun to watch your friends play around with their toys and see how they work with a Tesla Coil. Here’s Tansy in the Faraday suit playing with her flame whip with the coil.
It’s nice to have friends.
Tesla Theatre
Omega Recoil is completely uninvolved in this stage production from mugwumpin.org in San Francisco, but I thought it looked interesting.
Future Motive Power trailer from Christopher White on Vimeo.
More “Modern Marvels: Weird Machines”
It looks like the “Modern Marvels: Weird Machines” episode is going to air on the regular History Channel on December 27th at 8PM PST (and again a few hours later). Also aired December 17th on H2 at 5 & 9 PM PST.
Modern Marvels: Weird Machines
Here’s a link to the full episode of Modern Marvels which features Omega Recoil and a lot of our friends: Modern Marvels: Weird Machines. At 28:50 you’ll see Jon Sarriugarte and our electrical performances start at 32:50.
(Sometimes the link is active, sometimes it is down because the episode will be airing soon.)
Crazier than a tin-foil hat!
You may have thought a tin-foil hat was a sign of crazy, but a Tesla coil hat is probably a bit crazier: Dual Resonant Solid State Tesla Coil (DRSSTC) on a Hat
Not that Omega Recoil doesn’t have some crazy. Here’s a shot of our own Greg Solberg Greg in 2002:
Using plasma to kill bacteria?
This makes us think that cooking hotdogs on a Tesla coil or exploding fruit with an arc might be able to be sanctioned by the local health board….or maybe not. Using ionized plasmas as cheap sterilizers for developing world.