Tesla Coil Basics

The actual circuit of a tesla coil is pretty simple. Construction and operation, however is quite complex. The circuit displayed below is probably the easiest to build, yet is the one of the best overall designs.

As shown on the circuit above, a normal tesla coil can produce anywhere from 30,000 volts up to 1,000,000 volts. Using this same design, Tesla was able to build a coil 128 feet (39 m) tall that could produce sparks 135 feet (41 m). These lightning bolts sometimes exceeded 4 million volts and could be heard almost 15 miles (24 km) away.