Introduction

To start off you need to learn how a Tesla coil works and the basic circuit diagram. You can do this by looking it up or watching related Youtube videos.

My coil will be a sligh variation to this; the spark gap and capacitors will swap places. Dont ask.

 You then need to decide on the ratings of the basic components e.g  what voltage you want to use, the size of you secondary coil. Once you have done that you can buy everything on the list below. This can be made in under £100 and cheaper if you live in America.

Note - Do not buy the things marked with "Check rating" until you completed the next step.

• A Neon Sign Transformer - £50 -  From Ebay or Neon Sign shop - Check rating
• Capacitors - £30 - Ebay or electronics shop - Check rating
• 10 Meg Ohm Bleed Resistors - £9 - Ebay
• Spark and safety gap materials - Can be anything from a few metal nails in a chunk of wood.
• Spark gap fans - Optional
• Switch - Optional
• Crocodile clip wires - £3
• Magnet wire 20AWG - Varies on size - Check rating
• Flexable copper pipe - £3 for 1 meter - Check rating
• Aluminium Air Ducting Flexable- £11, depends on size - Check rating
• Cardboard or PVC tube - Check rating
• Foil Pie Plates - £1
• General wire - Lots of it needed for grounding!
• Wood -  Flat plates and small short beams

These are the basic things you need to make a good working Tesla coil. Half of the things in the list you can not buy yet as you need to know the exact size, length or voltage of all of the things marked Check Rating before you can get them. If the ratings are wrong then the coil will not work as efficiently and you wont get the big sparks that we want! I will go over how to choose the sizes and voltages and the ratings I used in the next step. After that you can order the stuff in the size, voltage and other chosen parameters necessary.