tinyTesla is a little Tesla coil that shoots sparks, plays MIDI tracks, and exercises your soldering skills.

This coil kit is designed to be easy to build and assemble for anyone with basic soldering skills. Shooting lightning and playing music using electricity itself is an exciting way to learn about physics and electronics!

tinyTesla is a little Tesla coil that:

shoots sparks
plays MIDI tracks
and exercises your soldering skills.

tinyTesla is a Solid-State Tesla Coil (SSTC), which has a non-resonant primary and a resonant secondary. Because the feedback loop locks on to the resonant frequency of the secondary, not the primary, tinyTesla is insensitive to its surroundings, allowing you to safely pull arcs off the coil with a metal object (pulling an arc with your finger will result in a nasty burn and is not recommended!).

The tinyTesla interrupter connects to your computer via USB and can be controlled using our own software or many other MIDI playback programs. tinyTesla can also be controlled through a MIDI instrument (such as a piano keyboard) using a USB to MIDI adapter and our software, which allows the input from the adapter to be passed through to the interrupter.

What exactly is included in the tinyTesla kit?

A 3” diameter, round Tesla coil driver PCB, and MIDI interrupter PCB
All necessary electronic components for assembling the two PCBs
Pre-wound secondary coil on a clear acrylic laser cut former
Round heat sink
Mounting hardware for the secondary coil onto the heat sink
A power cable and fiber optic cable for the optical link between the interrupter and the Tesla coil
An enclosure for the interrupter.

What equipment do I need to assemble a Tesla coil kit?

You need a good soldering iron, a multimeter, and common hand tools: a small screwdriver, wire cutters, diagonal cutters, needlenose pliers. You’ll also need a small amount of your favorite type of glue.

If you build your circuit properly and do not need to do extensive troubleshooting, you will get by fine without an oscilloscope or any sophisticated test equipment. However, it’s recommended to have a scope or access to one if you run into problems.

How much power does the kit draw?

tinyTesla draws about 150W.

What kind of music can the Tesla coils play?

tinyTesla and oneTeslaTS play MIDI files. They are both polyphonic, meaning they can play two notes at once. They can't play full-spectrum audio, but you can use an mp3-MIDI converter to convert your song of choice into MIDI. These conversions aren't perfect, however, so you may need to tweak your MIDI file later to get your perfect song.

Video Tutorials