Sign up for an invite
The Best Burglar Alarm in History
Written by Linda 
Photo:
All images via TeslaDownUnder
When Nikola Tesla got creative with transformers and driver circuits at the turn of the 20th century he probably had no idea that others would have so much fun with his concepts over a hundred years later.
One such guy is an Australian named Peter who runs a website called TeslaDownUnder, which showcases all his wacky Tesla ways, or rather electrickery, as Peter calls it.
This is just one of them:
Getting Ready
Photo:
Finishing Touches
Photo:
Total Protective Field
Photo:
In 2007 he persuaded his son to play a part in his experiments, all he had to do was sit in a car but his son was quite sure it was a good idea to be in it when the idea was to eventually be completely surrounded by a high-voltage electrical field. And you wouldn’t blame him, but his father assured him it was all perfectly safe (even though he had bought extra insurance on the hire car “just in case”).
Second Time Lucky
Photo:
3/4 rotation
Photo:
A Tesla coil was placed on top of the car with a rod projecting out and bent towards the ground, from which the sparks would fly. A wooden counterweight was then placed on top to make sure it stayed in place. When the electric current was switched on and the rod turned to encircle the car, under long exposure the results are electrifying.
Source TeslaDownUnder
If you want to find out all the latest news on the environment, why not subscribe to our RSS feed? We’ll even throw in a free album.
License:
Attribution-Share Alike 
Related Posts
Popular in Physics
.jpg "Parallel Universes Really Do Exist")
Comments
Programming Tutorials (not verified) says:
Dec 11th, 2008 at 10pm
Sounds cool, is this really real?
It probably takes a lot of juice!
mat (not verified) says:
Dec 12th, 2008 at 12am
that is the coolest thing i've seen all day. Thank you.
Boob Biter (not verified) says:
Dec 12th, 2008 at 8am
Interesting concept, except for the fact that none of the pictures were displayed, after many refreshes.
Vinayak (not verified) says:
Dec 12th, 2008 at 10am
Could you also mention the amount of power it consumes?
Apart from being spectacular, I think it may be too dangerous when you have kids around.
Mr Truth (not verified) says:
May 23rd, 2009 at 8am
Neat!
Looks almost like one of those barrier thingamajigs from the Zelda Twilight Princess game when you fight one of the Twilight Realm creatures, except it's to protect an object instead of fencing you in a battle arena. :O
Mr Truth (not verified) says:
May 23rd, 2009 at 8am
Forgot to add. I bet that's expensive to built and will cost a grand.
Laurence (not verified) says:
Dec 19th, 2008 at 8pm
Does no one realise that these photos where taken on a long exposure it really looks like this:
http://tesladownunder.com/TeslaCarTheftProtectionSparksOn.jpg
design (not verified) says:
Dec 19th, 2008 at 11pm
I expect this to be adopted to fit chastity belts in the future.
Rigby5 (not verified) says:
Dec 21st, 2008 at 6am
No, it does not take a lot of electricity.
The amperage is actually extremely low.
It is the voltage that is extremely high.
A Tesla coil is basically a huge transfomer.
The current is so low that it is not really dangerous.
The voltage is high, but it is just a large static discharge, like from rubbing wool. It can hurt, but is not likely to harm.
shitsngiggles (not verified) says:
Dec 22nd, 2008 at 12am
I just want to know why the car starts out being blue, then silver and finally ends in red?
Grant Brady (not verified) says:
Dec 23rd, 2008 at 1am
Each one of these photographs is actually several dozen photos of several rotations worth discharges (each rotation takes several seconds) that are digitally combined in photoshop as per their website. It would require an huge amount of power and speed for a real photo to look like this.
ben (not verified) says:
will you show me some application of tesla coil???
thanks