World's First MIDI Controlled Tesla Coil

jksuperstar

I don't have pics unfortunately, but at Denver's Burning Man Decomp party, several different projects merged to render (what I think may be) the world's first MIDI controlled Tesla Coil. Ableton Live & realtime control was sync'd to DJ's, which then fired relays controlling black lights, pressurized air solenoids, a flame thrower, and a quite large tesla coil capable of throwing arcs nearly 3 feet long. Hardware is based on the same controller board I used in this project: http://www.electro-music.com/forum/topic-7323.html, which then drove a 12v relay board, which in turn drove 120v relays, solendoids, etc..

Fun had by all. The coil seemed to have negligible reaction time when being triggered, and the loud cracks and szzzzzz sounds really played like an instrument. Again, fun fun fun! I will definitely have to look further into this.

elektro80 · Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2005 4:03 pm Post subject:

No pix? any reordings... video?

cappy2112

jksuperstar · Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 8:47 pm Post subject:

Because Tesla coils are carefully tuned to exact frequencies, there was only on/off control. However, gate length certainly made a big difference (more time = more time for the spark to build up or reach it's maximum length), maybe next time we'll map the velocity to gate. Thanks!