FEATURES Coilers During Covid
High-fashion Faraday suit with Anouk Wipprecht,
for Red Bull.
The world’s biggest musical Tesla coil, Project Titan
is 20 feet tall and can throw sparks 30 feet long.
And you can rent it.
Crisis and Opportunity
Then came the pandemic. Over the course of
three weeks, we saw the entire live performance
market crumble. Our friends in the industry were
out of work well before restaurants and bars had
to close their doors. By May, it was apparent that
we needed to pivot. For years we had dabbled
with the idea of making a Tesla coil kit, but hadn’t
followed through since we were on the road
so often. What if we’re too busy to support our
customers? Or to get orders out on time?
Now that all these issues had vanished, there
was no reason to postpone any longer. John
and I knocked out a great design over the next
few months. We used all the tricks and features
from our years on the road, not to mention my
electronic repair experience. I have little doubt
that we made the best Tesla coil kit available.
We decided to name our kit the Thundermouse.
It’s about 18 inches tall and can make sparks up
to 3 feet or more. It connects to your computer
with a USB device. It can do everything: make
single large sparks, play MIDI music files, you can
even plug your guitar into it. Despite its advanced
features, we made sure to use only through-hole
parts in its construction. Because of this, it’s an
excellent project for experts and amateurs.
But to mass-produce something, you need
more than a good product. We had to build
several jigs to aid in production. We automated
everything from twisting wires to bending rings.
Among the most complex machines we made is
an automated secondary coil winder. It’s capable
of winding a 700-turn coil in under 4 minutes. By
October, everything was looking good for a small
run before Christmas ... then Dad got sick.
He was hospitalized with Covid-19 in
November. Shortly after being admitted to the
ER, the doctors put him on oxygen. All of our
BY OCTOBER, EVERYTHING
WAS LOOKING GOOD FOR
A SMALL RUN BEFORE
CHRISTMAS ... THEN DAD
GOT SICK.
16 makercampus.com
M77_012-17_ArcAttack_F1.indd 16M77_012-17_ArcAttack_F1.indd 16 4/13/21 11:55 AM4/13/21 11:55 AM
..................Content has been hidden....................
You can't read the all page of ebook, please click here login for view all page.