We love a good Tesla coil music performance, but have never really considered building our own. After reading [TheHomebrewGuru's] guide to musical Tesla coils we’re still not considering it. Whether or not you’re going to undertake the project, his massive writeup is worth a look.

The tutorial begins at the beginning, with a bit of background on these devices, including what they are, where they came from, and the electrical theory behind them. From there it’s on to the build. This isn’t a go-out-and-buy it type of project. You’re going to need some ingenuity to hunt down parts that will work, and will work with each other.

The image above shows a partially built device, using sheet metal ductwork covered in foil tape as the torroid at the top. The column is wrapped in wire, forming the secondary coil, and the wooden base is ready for the installation of the primary coil. Electronics will be housed between the two wood discs of the base, with a TI Launchpad board driving the music part of the hack.

There isn’t a good demo video of this playing music. But you can get the idea if you look back at the head-mounted tesla coil which did a great job of pumping out the tunes.

Police named the fatality as Larry Ortega, 23, of Quezon province.

Those who were injured were identified as Jonathan Valenzuela, Jimmy Monares, Charlito Mepieza, Marlon Asidillo, Basilio Sedorio and Noli Patag.

The five are now confined atValenzuela Medical Center, said Police Officer 3 Dalton Rodriguez, case investigator.

Deadly contact

The accident happened at Cowloon Compound in Tatalon, Barangay (village) Ugong.

According to the police report, the contact between the high-voltage wire and the metallic bar sent electric shocks to six workers who were holding the bar.

Upon seeing this, Ortega rushed to help Valenzuela, the person nearest him, but he was electrocuted in the process.

Fellow construction workers managed to take the victims to the hospital, but Ortega was declared dead on arrival, Rodriguez said.

Electric currents

“Of the victims, only Ortega’s body did not release the electric currents trapped inside. That’s why he died. When you get electrocuted, your body has to release the currents,” he explained.

Work in the area resumed after what the police official called was an “unfortunate industrial accident.”

Senior Police Officer 3 Jess Sagisi, senior investigator, said that the other six who remain confined in the hospital were already in stable condition.

Story via Phillipine Daily Inquirer

Tucson, AZ – An electrician suffered life threatening injuries this afternoon while working on the University of Arizona campus.

The man, in his 30s, “was performing routine maintenance in a high voltage trailer” when he was shocked, at about 1:30 p.m., Tucson Fire Capt. Jeff Langejans said.

The victim was taken to University Medical Center, where he was reportedly conscious and speaking.

The incident caused a power outage in and around campus – including street lights and UA buildings – for about 90 minutes.

Story via Arizona Daily Star

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Santa Barbara, CA – A tree-trimmer suffered severe electrical burns on Wednesday after his rope wrapped around a power line.

Santa Barbara Fire Department spokesman Ryan DiGuilio said the man had thrown the rope over a tree limb he had been preparing to work on. The rope had some metal in it and when it went around an electrical line, it carried the current back up through the man’s harness, giving him severe electrical burns.

At 1:23 p.m. firefighters and paramedics received a report of a man caught in a tree on the first block of East Valerio Street.

When firefighters arrived, they found the man 30 feet in the air, hanging upside down. The man’s harness had slipped and only held him by the ankles.

Firefighters used a 35 foot ladder and a series of ropes and harness to get the man down. DiGuilio was still conscious on the way to Cottage Hospital.

Story via The Daily Sound.com

So what? It may seem like a fine relationship in my perspective but to my friends, there could be something more, better or worse. I could have done something bad to them that I haven’t realized yet. Or I know what I did was kind of annoying and awful but then again, I may have just been misunderstood so I just went on and acted normal. I know how bad I can be (but I will only show them to the right people). But when things are going well, all this time, I’m thinking that we’re ok and so my mind may be clogged with only the good things I did towards them and all the fun things we had together. Thus, when the time comes that I will hear from them that I made their lives difficult to live with and some other negative things, I will really feel bad. But if I also know that they love me, it’s fine. Mama Luz must not only think of what she heard. Among all, among team Wayuk, she must be the most knowledgeable that there were more happy memories worth thinking about than just two negative statements she heard. And Mama Luz actually did pretty well in responding to what she heard. I will also do the same thing. I can listen to stuff like that all day but I don’t want to lose our friendship because of that. I will not let go of such an important relationship because I believe that it will work forever. Ha! XD

Now, regarding team Wayuk comforting Mama Luz, that was also expected. However, that was not enough to judge team High Voltage. I haven’t heard them judge though so it was good. Their reactions were ok and nothing to be upset about.

Yo team High Voltage! What’s with your strategy? If you guys really want to win, then go ahead and do all you can and all the best but please, don’t forget to establish good relationship with your housemates. I appreciate how professional you are because you do things what the majority thinks is right and you try to get along. Maybe that’s why Luz did not notice that Divine already had hard times with her because Divine showed nothing bad. Divine did love her though. Maybe Divine was doing great in coping up with the difficulties Luz gave her such that Luz thought everything was fine. They had good relationship and teamwork. Maybe it was better for Divine to just stay away from Luz than hurt her thus nominating her to transfer to team Wayuk. Now, Divine’s strategy is to always work with people whom she can get along with. She also says what she thinks is right so blatantly. What’s funny is that most of the housemates agree with her, too. That’s what happened to Kigoy and it may happen to Seth, too. A very practical strategy.

Because of what happened, I guess TEAM HIGH VOLTAGE is more of like SASUKE and TEAM WAYUK is more of like NARUTO. Haha. Bow.

The three men, who suffered second- and third-degree burns to their feet, were on the ground but conscious when emergency personnel arrived on scene, Bramwell Fire Chief Joe Miller said. All three were transported by the Bluefield Rescue Squad to Bluefield Regional Medical Center. Miller said the men’s injuries were not believed to be life threatening.

Story via Bluefield Daily Telegraph

The worker, whose name is being withheld at his family’s request, was transported to the burn unit at UAB hospital Wednesday afternoon following the electrical accident, which occurred around 2:15 p.m. No other workers were injured.

Co-op spokesman Brian Lacy said Wednesday the accident occurred during routine work on the cooperative’s distribution lines in the area.

“There were several crews working in the area at the time, and he was by himself in the bucket of a bucket truck when he came into physical contact with the line,” said Lacy.

“His partner on the ground, who had been trained in bucket truck-type rescue procedures, was able to use the bucket controls on the ground to lower him and help get him out of the bucket. He was transported to helicopter to the burn unit at UAB, and he was responsive and able to communicate with paramedics on the ground at the time that he was being loaded into the helicopter.”

The distribution line on which the man had been working carries 7,200 volts of electricity, said Lacy.

Because of the manner in which electrical injuries affect the body, Lacy said it is too early to offer a prognosis on the victim’s long-term prospects for recovery.

“In general, in situations in which electricity passes through the body, a person can have visible burn marks on their skin — but they can also have internal injuries that may take more time to manifest,” he said. “It could really be several weeks until we know. The fact that he is alive is good news, and we are hopeful that the doctors will be able to help him in his recovery, but it is still very early in that process right now.”

While accidents involving high-voltage electrical currents are severe, they are also rare. The last accident in which a Co-op lineman was injured after contact with an energized line occurred more than 10 years ago, in July of 2000.

“We put a major emphasis on safety, and on understanding the dangers involved with electricity,” said Lacy. “It’s so unforgiving — all it takes is one mistake, one time. Our workers are guys who, every single day, put themselves in a position of potential danger. Our guys receive training on site six months out of the year with the safety director of the Alabama Rural Electricity Association, who comes and reinforces the same concepts and procedures these guys have known their entire career. Certainly there’s no one on the face of the earth who has more respect for the power of electricity than an electrical lineman.”

Story via CullmanTimes.com

“I’m kind of obsessed with water,” John, the lead singer of Swimming, reveals. “It cleanses, gives life, takes life, is revered in all cultures, used in ablutions, used for water slides. Water is such a great visual and sonic source of ideas.” And this is a band who are definitely not short of original ideas; Ecstatics International, is an experimental, fluid album which, as John points out, “takes you out into space and looks back”. This sequel to their debut The Fireflow Trade is clearly inspiring a lot of different emotions in people: “ It’s been enlightening to read the reviews. Each one reads like they have listened to a different album which is great and lots of the writers we read and respect get it.”

The union of John’s falsetto tones and the jangly guitars, synths and electronica beats just works so well. Erratically shifting and overlapping genres, all ten tracks exude awe-inspiring creative genius. On the dynamism of the album, John notes, “there’s a lot of very lo-fi stuff in there recorded on 4-track combined with more high-end recording all fitting together – just depends on what feels right for the song. We try to blend and change what roles the instruments play.” The band even use recordings of water and snow in their music – “it’s about creating an atmosphere or getting a message across and making sounds that get us excited with the equipment we have. A lot of [our lyrical content] is from ideas I was writing as a kid or the distorted memories, like restoring a faded jotter, so it’s got this brightness in all the layers.”

The Midlands five-piece are constantly being likened to other artists. John has counted 80 comparisons over the last two albums. This is unsurprising when you hear the juxtaposition of the multitude of sounds and styles within their songs; but really the band sound like a lot of other bands and also no other band at all.

Watch out for Swimming’s 2012 tour and the band’s documentary on their binaural headphone-only recordings, which will be shown at film festivals early next year.

We can hear the commercial now…

“Reeeeeeal men of geniuuuuuuus! Here’s to you Mr. no-fear, singing Tesla coil on your hat wearing guy…”

Call him a genius or call him crazy – all we know is that [Tyler’s] Tesla coil hat is awesome! Even though it’s the middle of November, we couldn’t pass up this Halloween costume.

[Tyler’s] creation essentially boiled down to taking a standard dual resonant solid state Tesla coil and shrinking it down to a reasonable size for mounting on his skull. The mini Tesla features a pretty compact boost core which worked reasonably well, at least for a little while. He says that the boost never truly worked properly and needs a redesign, which is something he’ll tackle when he gets some free time.

Boost issues or not, we think that the video below speaks for itself. The hat is certainly an attention getter, and we think it’s great – even if wearing a Tesla coil on your head is not necessarily the safest thing to do.

WHITTIER (CBS) — A 24-year-old Whittier man is in critical condition after being struck by a downed power line.

Officials say the high-voltage line fell on the man and shocked him for several minutes.

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune reported the accident occurred about 8 a.m. in the 1300 block of Mooreland Drive.

Authorities report a morning storm caused the wire to break loose. After it landed on the man’s roof, a fire ignited. While fighting the flames, the power line jumped from the roof and hit the man, knocking him unconscious.

The newspaper quotes Whittier Police Sgt. Brent Anderson who said when police arrived “they found a man pinned to the ground by a power wire.”

Police were first alerted to a call reporting someone was screaming in an alley.

A 46-year-old woman, believed to be the man’s mother, reportedly tried to rescue the victim. She too was shocked. The woman was thrown across the alley, but her injuries are not believed to be life-threatening.

Police summoned Southern California Edison to the scene and officials say they arrived within minutes to cut the power.

Electrical Engineers don’t need push pins. That’s because they know how to control electrons! [Sven] put his knowledge of these subatomic particles to use when building his high voltage bulletin board. It uses a set of vertically strung wires to keep paper pinned against the board. The wires have high voltage at low current travelling through them. They’re in front of the board, but not touching it, and the board is serving as a ground plane. In this way an electrostatic charge pushes (or should that be pulls?) against the paper to keep each sheet right where he places it.

In the video after the break [Sven] gives us a tour of the hardware at work here. It starts with a 12V psu which feeds a buck converter. The regulated feed is patched into a high voltage supply which was designed as a CCFL driver. Finally, a voltage doubler is used to reach the final voltage, measuring about 20 kV per wire.

Don’t worry, [Sven] says the bare wire is “almost completely safe” because of the low current being conducted.

Each board drives one automotive ignition coil, and you can control one or more using an Arduino microcontroller (not included). Designers Brett Downing and Daniel Harmsworth, of the Artifactory hackerspace in Perth, Australia, used these boards to build their Polyplasmic Arcophone, a giant instrument that features 13 Jacob’s ladders, zapping out music!

[Matt] entered himself in a pumpkin carving contest this year, even despite the fact that his artistic skills were a bit…lacking. He knew that he had very little chance of winning the contest unless he had a great gimmick to make his creation stand out, so he started brainstorming.

[Matt] figured that since his design would have to be somewhat simple, he needed something eye catching that he could add to the pumpkin after it went under the knife. Like a bolt of lightning, inspiration struck, and he set off to fetch an ignition transformer along with some wire coat hanger.

He built a makeshift Jacob’s ladder that would fit perfectly inside his hollowed out pumpkin, and proceeded to carve the pumpkin with the “Caution, risk of electric shock” logo, familiar to most anyone that works with electronics. You can see the final result in the video below, which we think looks pretty neat. If he didn’t end up winning the contest, we’d be shocked!

Adam's Old Hood

To start this post off, our trip to California was to see Adam’s little sister Lauren at her marching band competition in Mission Viejo (in which I think they got ripped and cheated but that’s a whole different rant that has been beat to death at this point so I will not go into for your sake). But Adam’s alternate mission was to eat as much food out there that we can’t get in Arizona. And that includes mexican street tacos. From this place right here. The ORIGINAL King Taco. It is delightful. Adam loves it because you can get all types of nasty bits there that you can never find anywhere else. I stick with the Carne Asada and Carnitas (pork). But it is better than even Salazar Brothers (I know, slap me in the face! right!!!). So that’s all I really have to say about that. So we literally drive into the “Inland Empire” to Chino Hills to pick up Grandma and go get tacos. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a King Taco close to where we were staying so we settled with some off the wall little Mexican taco shop. But it was so good. Especially after a day of driving… with CASH in the car. Yeah.. I will go into that later…

"Geisha House 9 O'Clock"

Then we headed down Hollywood Boulevard. We take Cash along with us which was probably the biggest mistake of a lifetime. But we learned our lesson. Cash doesn’t like large crowds, Marilyn Monroe, BumbleBee (Transformers), or Captain America. Oh and he thinks the children are the devil reincarnate. But other than that and Adam being a grump I had a great time. I took plenty of pictures of the “Stars” despite Adam giving me a hard time for being a typical tourist. I didn’t care. We passed the “Geisha House” from Knocked Up. I love that movie and thought it was must to snap a picture of it.

Kat Von D

Since we were right there and Adam’s mother really needed to pee we headed over to Kat Von D’s High Voltage tattoo shop and Wonderland Gallery and Store. There was a grocery store right next door that actually had free parking so we hopped out and let the dog drink some water and let me snap a few picture. Now I didn’t want to be too intrusive because this is these peoples place of business. I am not going to paparazzi them and interrupt their work day. That is rude and awful. But I did snap a good picture of the front and tried to get the painting in the back, but again didn’t want to be too intrusive and I was only able to get one side. Yes, she was there. Her car was parked and I saw her in the studio. I love her work and that’s about it. So please no harsh comments or I will have to release Adam on you.

Captain of Fresh Crab

Like I had said earlier. Adam’s mission was to eat as much delicious food as he could. Well the plan didn’t work out as well as we had hoped it would but he still got to eat plenty of fresh seafood and tacos while we were there. We spent a lot of time on the road while we were in California. Approximately 27 hours total between getting there and driving there and then coming back home. Or here is a better example. We drove a total of 700 miles in the state of California alone.. AFTER arriving. And a lot of that was spent in traffic. Damn Los Angeles traffic. But here is a picture of Adam enjoying a fresh crab.. that he picked out on the San Pedro Pier. We had a quite expensive lunch but it was well worth it to see a smile like that come across Adam’s face. He loves California. This is going to be one of our last trips for awhile since we are planning the big move. Hopefully, we will be able to make it out one more time next summer for Lauren’s graduation trip thing. We will stay longer and have it more planned… obviously taking LA traffic into consideration.

Here are a few more pictures for your enjoyment.

The boys

Delicious

Ocean

Albert “Taz” Forest is a Music Industry Studies junior at Loyola University New Orleans. He was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he still resides. Albert has been doing real Hip-Hop music since he was able to write. He is the perfect example of the saying “Music is my Life.” Every time you see him or contact him, he is doing writing, recording, mixing a song. He is a writer, rapper, and producer; own his own label, High Voltage. Every semester since Albert started at Loyola he has been battling anyone at anytime, anywhere. He is a down to earth friendly person and a pleasure to be around. He is that one person that everyone comes to see, and once he has done what he came to do he leaves and everyone leaves with him.

His album, Category 5, will release on Halloween, October 31, 2011.

One of the songs off his album is called I DO IT BIG , click the link to listen!

You can also follow him at HVMusic.wordpress.com