Mini Tesla Coil Is Safe for Desktop Fun

Everyone loves Tesla Coils, that’s just a fact of life. Whether they’re part of a kinetic art exhibit, or you’re just using them to defend your base in Command & Conquer: Red Alert, the electrically-charged goodness of a Tesla Coil is fascinating to behold. Unfortunately, they’re also legitimately dangerous—we are talking about very high voltages here.

Luckily for you aspiring mad scientists out there, a relatively safe Tesla Coil can be built to play with on your desktop. MEGAVOLTS.nl has a great tutorial on how this can be done with etched PCB coils, and just the power from your computer’s USB port. While there is a small chance of minor burns, the low voltage and amperage of USB power means the design is pretty safe.

Of course, that also means you won’t be getting any huge arcs here. When a pin or needle is used to focus the arcs, you can expect to get about one or two inches. But, for a desktop toy, that’s still really good, and more than enough to impress your coworkers!

If you’d like to build your own, the writeup is very detailed and provides both instructions and a lot of information on the theories behind the electronics. Schematics and firmware are provided, and all you’ll really need is a way to etch or print a PCB, a PIC microcontroller, and a few other miscellaneous components.