Build a Ion Ray Gun

[MattK]

I have been under the weather for the last couple days and I am looking for a little project to do. I know you can build a "Ion Ray Gun"... it can turn on lights and such.

Anyone have any plans on how to build it?

Thanks,
Matt

[Adam Y.]

Hmmm.... I know that a Tesla Coil can turn on lights from a distance. Is that what you want to build??

[Ian W.]

A Tesla Coil is sort of like an Ion Gun, except not really at all .

I think a Tesla Coil can only light up fluorescent lights and such, don't remember the one my science teacher had ever lighting up a standard incandescent bulb...

[DanL]

I believe you're talking about a HERF Gun

Go to http://www.voltagelabs.com/ or search Slashdot for HERF Guns - there were a quite a few stories of those a few weeks back.

[Tytus Gerrish]

a telsa coil lights up fluorescents because of the static field around them When the Field gets strong enough to reach a decent conductor it Jumps in the form of an ARC

[Adam Y.]

I will take a look in my books but a HERF gun is based on Tesla's inventions. Yup the HERF gun is nothing more than an overblown Tesla coil. I quote from slashdot.

I've seen this happen, and it's easy to reproduce. When I was testing out a spark gap I made for my tesla coil, I was doing it near to my computer. Not a very smart thing to do in general, but I was listening to MP3s while I work. Anyway, as soon as I switched it on, my box locked up, made some $@#$@#$@#$@#ed-up "R2-D2" noises, and crashed. I immediately turned off the TC power supply, rebooted my computer, and it locked up again. I was freaking out for a minute that I had killed my box, but luckily it worked after I shut it off for a few seconds and turned it back on. If a small spark gap can knock out a computer from 2.5 meters away, just think what a BIG one could do.

That Tesla was one odd guy. Aparently he started an earthquake by finding the resonance frequence of the earth(found that out in a science museum show). He is even the guy that proved that it is safe to stay in your car during a lighting storm. Though I wonder what the differnce is between the HERF gun and an EMP pulse. It looks like they do the same.

telsa coil lights up fluorescents because of the static field around them When the Field gets strong enough to reach a decent conductor it Jumps in the form of an ARC

You are confusing the Van Da Gaff machine with the Tesla coil. One works on static electricity and the other one works on high frequency electricity.

[Frank(Aflak)]

heh, some friends (and teammates) of mine built a Tesla coil, and that thing is AWESOME!(edit: as posted above, the tesla coil doesn't arc current to the bulb, the bulb just lights up, no arc. It is pretty amazing)

They have a video in which they turn it on and cut the lights . .. then wave aroung a flourescent bulb . . . the coil got that pretty bright! Definatly worth the time. VanDeGraf (whatever is called) is also incredibly cool (but not tesla coil cool). Get a bunch friends to hold hands, have one touch the ball, turn it on . . they won't feel anything much . . but then ground the ball with no warning and they will be on the ground. Our physics teacher did that to us and it was one of the funniest things I have ever experienced.

[DanL]

Originally posted by Frank(Aflak)
[B Get a bunch friends to hold hands, have one touch the ball, turn it on . . they won't feel anything much . . but then ground the ball with no warning and they will be on the ground. Our physics teacher did that to us and it was one of the funniest things I have ever experienced. [/b]

Did that in Physics too, once. The jolt o' static electricity actually cause my (digital) watch to reset.

[Adam Y.]

I was reading a book on Tesla and it supposedly say he manged to create such a back emf force that it destroyed the power generator while he was experimenting.

[Ian W.]

I've heard tons of stuff on Telsa. The funniest one was that he was involved in the so called "Philidephia Experiement" which, if it actually did ever happen, happened after he died I believe.

The Death Ray story was also good (yeah, that whole thing in Sibera, that was apparently Telsa, according to the good old conspiracy theories).

The earthquake story, from what I've heard, was an accident. He created a machine that could simply break anything by finding the correct frequency, or something like that. So, he had a long iron bar cemented into the earth in his lab. Sticks the machine (it was apparently really small) on the iron rod, selects the frequency for iron, and the next thing he knew, the buildings across the street (I think his lab was somewhere in NYC, no?) were shaking, and in a panic he took a crowbar to the machine, utterly destroying it in the process.

He did make the worlds first remote controlled boat, that was pretty cool. Simple radio flicked on a light, and the boat would "count" numbers to simple math equations (1 + 1 = 2). It'd also drive around, controlled by a small controller he held in his pocket . Scared a bunch of people with that.

Another good story was the "Wireless Power" one, that I heard from M. Krass. Telsa made a nice big Telsa Coil, gave some people lightbulbs, stood them out in a field, flipped the switch, killed them all instantly.

Tesla was one crazy guy, I only wish there was more concrete stuff on all the wacky stuff that he did.

[Adam Y.]

Another good story was the "Wireless Power" one, that I heard from M. Krass. Telsa made a nice big Telsa Coil, gave some people lightbulbs, stood them out in a field, flipped the switch, killed them all instantly.

The problem with that story is that Tesla coils only work about a few feet away.

[Ian W.]

No, according to this story (which makes it kinda unbelievable), Tesla made a "super coil" that had much stronger "signal", and this was used, and somehow killed everyone. It's still a fun story to tell freshmeat, err, men, when you start working on the electical system .

[Adam Y.]

No, according to this story (which makes it kinda unbelievable), Tesla made a "super coil" that had much stronger "signal", and this was used, and somehow killed everyone. It's still a fun story to tell freshmeat, err, men, when you start working on the electical system .

I was reading that supposedly people witnessed electricity arcing from their feet, and electricity coming from the tap when Tesla was experimenting with electricity. His death ray might have been nothing more than this Herf Gun by the descriptions of it in my book.