Wonder what this site looked like in 2003?

Thanks to financial donors to the site and their interests:



An Australian high voltage site from Peter Terren (aka Dr Electric) with 200 projects such as...





Tesla coil sparks Awesome to be near. (click to enlarge)

Current performance in Australia's Got Talent

I was invited to perform in the auditions of Australia's Got Talent in Perth and it screened on May 10th Channel 7.

Here is a 7 second animated gif version of the 2 minute act.

Below is my performance from visible on YouTube worldwide (not just limited to Australia)Dr Electric if you please...





Below is the performance from my video camera (used for safety monitoring). It includes the original sound track and lots of other stuff not seen in the televised show.

Jump to my media page here containing all the videos and describing my construction and setup.

View the Wikipedia entry for Australia's Got Talent 2011.

Jump to the Australia's Got Talent video official site

Link to the gallery photo on Australia's Got Talent.

Above shows the main two stunts I did. Left shows how to burn CD's and a wooden rod that I am holding goes up in flames. The right shows sparks onto a metal cage that surrounds me .

Feel free to play the original soundtrack while you continue to explore this site.

Hey, push this button to get cash and friends!!. Well actually just my thanks for testing out my startup Facebook page for the site.





Best TV videos

This TV news article shows my big Tesla coil running the "Electrickery" clip. From the USA on MSNBC news in Dec 2008. TV news clips like this from 17 countries of my stuff are shown on my Media page. (30 sec)



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Discovery USA screened "Is it possible?" in the USA on 3 occasions April 7 - May 2. My stuff was featured for 7 mins and the title was Dr Electric, human lightning rod....hmmm. Sounds like I need some colored tights and wear my undies on the outside - perhaps 2 pairs.

Directed by Neil Thomas (Thunderbird Films) who flew in from Canada. It was filmed by cameraman Dean Lomax on Nov, 7 2009. A long 13 hour shoot for 4 hours footage on one camera and 3h on the other. Filmed on location (my home in Bunbury, Western Australia) and shows lots of big sparks and stunts including sparks onto me while in a swimming pool. Hey, I even blew up a few watermelons. Video runs 8 mins.



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Best projects:

Check out a 16,000 Joule 12,000 volt capacitor bank for hugely powerful discharges. Half a gigawatt of peak power used for Can crushing, coinshrinking, exploding wires, exploding watermelons and many other experiments. Perhaps look at the Xmas tree 2009 , the Red Alert Tesla coil, Jacob's Bi-ladder, making liquid oxygen, Discovery Channel videos of my stuff, my new record spark length of 11 feet, multicolored sparks, the Tesla Envy video - up VERY close to huge sparks, Dalek cage, swimming with 100,000 volts, video of car theft protection, "Eye of Sauron" and a sparks for beginners project with only 3 components.

Other capacitor banks with electronic switching drive projectile devices such as a rail gun and coil gun. Other HV stuff stuff includes voltage multipliers, Van de Graaff generator, Jacobs ladder, lifters and other high voltage supplies. Various lasers including a homemade ultraviolet nitrogen laser, NdYAG, HeNe, Blu-ray laser, and CO2. Also magnetohydrodynamic drive, 800 A spotwelder, huge smoke rings, liquid nitrogen, ferrofluid, magnetic levitation, miscellaneous electronic projects and a few half baked ideas...

What's New:

May 29th , 2011. Check out the What's New Blog for details. I did a modern interpretation of Tesla's famous photo with his wireless light globe. I performed in the heats of Australia's Got Talent. Highlights in recent months include work on a proposal to NASA to view my light from Space. The light is used on the World's brightest bike light (below) and World's brightest flashlight . Also see the Xmas tree 2010. Had a visit from SteamPunk enthusiasts for a night of Tesla goodness. Belatedly documented my last Open day in March.

Above, the World's most powerful bike light

Merry Christmas folks ! That's what we're like downunder.



Coming soon. The World's brightest flashlight shown above lighting a lighthouse.

Best photos: (out of over 1400 in this site)



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The "Modern Thinker" above is my interpretation of Rodin's classic statue the "Thinker". It conveys the concept of the modern electrical age with the barrage of electrical interference in our lives. So much is happening and demanding our attention that it is difficult to "think".

Believe that?. Me neither. I just like making pretty spark photos....

This was arranged as an exclusive for Vice magazine who asked for a new project to feature.

By the way, no photoshopping anywhere on this site. It's all what the camera sees. Check out the Modern Thinker page for the construction of this.



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Above, a Tesla Xmas tree from 2009 made of Tesla coil sparks That's how we do it in Oz. Merry Christmas.



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Above, the recreation of the Red Alert Tesla coil using a real one. My most complicated photo.

Above, the Tesla trooper from Red Alert in action with a real Tesla coil.



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Above shows "Tesladownunder car theft protection". You must see the video as well for a laugh.

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Above shows a Tesla coil with rotating long breakout point looking dramatic on time exposure of 22 seconds. The "Eye of Sauron". The two photos above have been seen by perhaps 500,000 people worldwide now since Feb 2007 and resulted in well over 100,000 hits to my site. My ISP ran out of bandwidth and had to shut me down for a day after 330 GB transfer. It was featured on some big sites and hundreds of blogs and was also popular in Russia and Japan. (For printing, 6 megapixel uncropped versions of most photos are available at a small charge - email me).

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Above, the "Aura of Sauron". It looks unreal but there is no "photoshopping" anywhere on this website. All my photos are single exposures with very little post processing ie real photos. The effects come from doing things during the exposure which can be striking particularly if the source of sparks have shifted or rotated as above.

Above is an animated gif showing the effects of rotating the rod on top. In real time it takes 7 seconds per rotation.

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Above is my recreation of Tesla and his wireless light globe compared with the original.

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Above shows the setup. See how the globe just sits in space. This is the tie in between two scenes

To make this picture with a single long exposure, open the shutter and take the flash photo above.

Then run away (in darkness so it is not recorded on the camera with shutter still open).

Turn on the a few seconds of Tesla coil sparks onto the globe. I am a safe distance away.

Close the shutter (total 13 seconds) and the two images are combined on one exposure.

No photoshopping - ever.

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Above, the Dalek cage. Just what you need to get up close and personal with lotsa volts. And you can even use a phone in it.



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Above: How about red sparks?

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Above: There are lots of other colors to see in multi-colored sparks. These are single photographic exposures through clear and colored filters in turn.

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Above, swimming with 100,000 volts. Sure it's safe. Tin hats protect you. Only do this at home. See the Discovery Channel video 5:14 mins for the full details.



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Above: The ring of 'antivirus' protection done with 60,000 volt sparks.

Hey, I don't just do high voltage stuff.



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Above: This monster 7000 lumen LED runs on 100W, and can burn things like this CD case. Brighter than car lights too so great for irresponsible fun on the bicycle.

I like blowing stuff up too...

... like exploding a watermelon with electrical power. Good clean fun.

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Above, exploding the Easter Bunny - because I can (and the foil wrapping is conductive).

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Above: The capacitor bank is discharging 3 kJ in to some steel wool for more impressive sparkler effects. See the second Discovery Channel video 3:45 mins for this in real time.



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Above: Lots of spark pictures from 30,000 to 100,000 volts. I like sparks ...



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Above, Tesla coils with sparks from 2 inches (5cm) to 11 feet (3.3m). Seems odd that my longest spark photo is 26 th photo down.

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Above, a briefcase Tesla coil and sparks in a light globe.



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Above, Tesla coils sparks onto my tongue, driving a string of up to 30 fluoro tubes and apologies to Michelangelo's Creation.



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Above, some unusual solid state Tesla coils on the left using SIDACs instead of a spark gap, centre using a Royer circuit and on the right a vacuum tube based coil and its sparks.



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The big capacitor bank is running at huge powers now and is great for exploding wires.



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Above, from left to right: an electronic art piece, homemade computer plotter and a solar model car.



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Above on the left is my new lifter with neon lights installed. Center shows a run outdoors and the right shows the installation in a science museum.

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Above on the left is a much stronger lifter running on 80 kV lifting its own weight. The right photo shows 4.5 inch sparks if overdriven.



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Above left is my magnetic levitation display running, centre is a coil levitated and on the right is hydrogen/chlorine ignition at the back of my model boat with magnetohydrodynamic drive.



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Above left is aerogel, the worlds lightest solid - "frozen smoke" and right is the bizarre ferrofluid.

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On the left above is my home made Nitrogen laser with the beam in Fluorescein. The center picture shows the Nitrogen laser diffraction pattern. The laser is ultraviolet but shines up with a blue fluorescence on white paper. The right picture shows green 5 mW diode and red HeNe 10 mW beams grazing the camera.



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On the left above, is the violet laser out of a Blu-ray player made into a laser pointer. The center photo shows a hologram from this unit. On the right is a beam through Fluorescein, tonic water and Rhodamine showing green, blue and orange fluorescence in turn.



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On the left is my son with a blue laser burning the garage roof. (Actually a small alcohol flamethrower). The center photo shows a real blue laser parallel to a HeNe red beam. On the right is a pattern from a laser beam modulated by two mirror galvanometers.



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On the left: "Beam me up, Scotty" to far away galaxies... The argon laser beam is modulated by two mirror galvanometers. The center photo shows t he dramatic effects by making a smoke tunnel with a circular beam. On the right is a pattern from the beam through a diffraction grating showing the multiple spectral lines.



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Above left shows the 800 amp spotwelder flash. Centre is the flyback supply. Right is a battery operated Candy box HV supply using old camera and TV parts.



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Above left is liquid nitrogen in the pool. Center photo shows the dangerous stunt of putting my hand in liquid nitrogen. Right photo shows the gear I use to make liquid oxygen using liquid nitrogen.

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Above left is a banana hammer for hammering in small nails. The banana becomes hard and brittle at liquid nitrogen temperatures. On the right is a flower made glass like and brittle.



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Above left is tonic water under UV light. Centre is a scorpion fluorescing under UV and on the right a handful of uranium glass marbles.



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Above left is the completed railgun. center is a Handpowered coilgun and right, a Spud gun .



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Above. Can crushing with magnetic induction upgraded and now tears the can apart with 40,000 A.

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Above. The bigger can crusher at currents of 80,000 A will tear it in thirds, or in a spiral depending on the shape of the work coil.

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Above, the technical stuff about measuring the very high current pulses. The center photo shows an early coin shrinking attempt and the right photo shows amazing shrinkage of a 1 yen coin. You can still see the Japanese characters miniaturized. Bonsai for coins.

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Above, Magneforming is the use of extreme magnetic fields to form a metal sheet over an object.



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Above, rewiring a microwave oven into a useful HV supply. Power supply 1971 style. The right photo is actually my most impressive high power arc at over 2 feet long from an x-ray transformer.

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Above, a Jacob's ladder and a Jacobs Bi-ladder. On the right, some sparks viewed end-on.



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Above, strange behavior of high voltage. Woodburn fractals, the arc-repellant screwdriver and plasma in a magnetic field.

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Can you work out what these have to do with high voltage or magnetism? Left, center or right for the answers.



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More

Electrostatic levitation of non conductive (deionised) water and arcs onto a water surface.



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High speed photos of Tesla coil sparks showing detail of events in time after the spark (left), before the main spark (center) and details of the polarity of each trailing spark. Ordinary photos perhaps, until you consider that the time difference between each spark in the left photo is 5 millionths of a second.



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One volt can be impressive too (at 533 amps). Spinthariscope made from around the house materials to view alpha particle activity. Internals of a 120 kV x-ray head.

Radioactivity is topical. Here is a readout from my geiger counter.

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Above is a

registering high counts from a Uranium ore sample. The graph shows background radiation counts from my home updated 6 hourly (when I have it connected). Check out the page here for details of my other radioactive stuff.



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The amazing

(two ball races and an axle) at 1223 RPM and 165 A. On the right is an incredibly simple

which runs at 5000 RPM and takes seconds to assemble.



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On the left above is a

Dull at rest but on the center and right gives interesting mapping of unusual fields on movement.



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Above shows a

Lots of fun and a unique opportunity for basketball players.



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More

shots giving unusual effects like the "UFO" in the center. Also



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More unusual spark effects from a very

and a



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Photos above show a 5 second exposure of a sparkler attached to an electric drill.



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Photos above show a 5 second exposures of two different types of LED arrays giving unusual effects. A CD zapped in a microwave also gives unusual fractal patterns.

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Above:

Comet McNaught photo which made it to the cover of the Chinese astronomical journal and a few other places.



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Above, meet some friendly

Other Media

Discovery Channel - Daily Planet TV in Canada has done 4 videos of my stuff. Nice high quality production which took about 6 hours shooting for each 5 mins. And the first one won an award. More details in Media.

Dutch Novus TV Filmed Nov 2008. Suzanne from Veronica TV in Holland recorded a segment about electricity for a program on phobias. She gets confronted by electricity from small shocks on her arm to a mini-Tesla coil. Then on to standing in a cage with 6 foot sparks from a huge Tesla coil striking only a few inches from her face. She was genuinely scared and took a lot of coaxing. After that it was into a pool to have 2 foot sparks onto her head wearing a tinfoil hat. More details in Media. (15 mins)



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My Videos

Smoke Rings 2006 See further details here.

Also on Youtube 307,845 views, Break 514,472 views, 330 comments and Myspace 245,252 views 655 comments. That's over a million views not including my website.



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Tesla Envy 2007

This is my best video titled "Tesla Envy - getting VERY close to huge sparks". See sparks from my largest Tesla coil striking a Faraday cage only inches from my face.

Also on Youtube Tesla Envy 108,931 views,





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Tesla Car Thief protection More details on the making of the video here.

Also on Youtube with 229,563 views and Break with 385,128 views.





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Magnetic Levitation showing the magnet rotating in the air.



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Tesladownunder in the media: Not the best site in the world but tryin' hard.

Here's where I stand...

Around 2000 websites feature a link or my pictures. See them here at Backward links.

Google PageRank 5 (0-10)

Google search for Tesladownunder: 75,000 hits Oct 2009.

Alexa rank peak global internet reach .016%. Currently .0016%. Rank 94,400 July 2007

Digg: total Diggs (for Tesladownunder hits) 14,000 in 52 topics Oct 2009.



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Maxim Magazine (UK version above left) Dec 2007. It is a "men's magazine" and the cover is perhaps too saucy for my front page. Ok it's here (UK cover) NSFW. Also had different article in Czech Maxim with similar NSFW cover here (Czech)



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Left above, is the Metro newspaper page 3 article in the UK , Dec 7 2007 (1 million circulation) and on the right Spectrum.IEEE May 2007.

This site has 2500 photos in 33 pages and is over 860 MB .

This page is being updated frequently ( last Jan 11, 2011 )

so feel free to visit again

.

Contact me

Comments? Queries? Criticisms? Done something similar? Email me, Peter Terren

Please note that I am not interested in discussing "Free energy", Tesla's unproven ideas or pseudoscience.

Advertising

I have limited advertising and will consider offers. This site is running at about 800,000 hits/year at present. $10 gets you or your company a mention and link in the left column (see donations below).

Donations

Hey, want to get your name on this page? I am frugal but this can still be expensive stuff. If you care to donate US$10 towards further projects I would be most grateful and will provide an acknowledgement on this page in the left hand column.



Donate US$10

Currently looking for $10 towards materials for a Guinness World Record LED project.

Donors acknowledged in the left column on this page All of the work on this website (unless stated) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License

(and now starting to clean it up with Microsoft ExpressionWeb 2)