Category Archives: Nottingham Gaussfest

Nottingham Gaussfest, Teslathons

Nottingham, Gaussfest 2023

Another great day at Papplewick Pumping Station playing with all things high voltage. A very eclectic collection of high voltage exhibits again this year, and a big thank you to the exhibitors and visitors that literally came from all over the world to this event.

And of course a huge thank you to Papplewick Pumping Station and their volunteers for lending us their steam hall, boiler room and coal shelter for the day.

Here is a few photos and videos, Ill post more as I get them.

Nottingham Gaussfest, Teslathons

Nottingham Gaussfest 2019

Another great High Voltage meet at Papplewick Pumping station this year.

These are some photos and videos from the event.

Derek’s Coils and Stuff…

  • Pi Twin
  • Pi Twim
  • Large Wimshurst
  • Pi Twins playing
  • Ext Kits mini Wimshurst prototype

Extreme kits mini Wimshurst powers a ping pong accelerator


Large Wimshurst throws some sparks

Steve’s Tesla Coil

  • Steve Arrives with his coil
  • Placed in the only space big enough
  • Arcs to roof trusses
  • Then plays it with a guitar
  • With BIG sparks….

Roger’s VDG, Geissler tubes and Wimshurst


  • Geissler Tubes
  • Wimshurst Machine and Van De Graaff

Van De Graaff with a charged ball

Alec’s Collection

  • Coils, Wireless Power transmission
  • SSTC, Buzz wire game
  • and more coils.


Dave’s Coils

  • Large Rotary coil
  • Small Static Gap Coil
  • Close up of the large rotaty coil

Andrew’s collection

  • Violet Ray, hand wound HV generator
  • Ping pong Accelerator, Jacobs ladder etc.

Roberts stuff
3 phase Jacobs ladder


  • And a load of HV stuff around the entrance.

Gary’s Jacobs ladder & Flyback TC

Simon and Mark

  • Kelvin Thunderstorm
  • Kelvin Thunderstorm
  • Kelvin Thunderstorm
  • Simon’s Nixies

Carl’s Tesla coil

  • Carl’s Coil
  • Carl’s Rotary

Thanks to Andy B and Alex L for many of the above and Mark K for these below.

Please return Its likely I’ll get sent more pics and videos that I’ll post here. (email me tesla@extremelectronics.co.uk if you have a pic or video)

Nottingham Gaussfest, Teslathons, Uncategorized

Nottingham Gaussfest 2018

What a great day at Papplewick Pumping station. The change of venue caused some teething problems with space and I caused some problems with exhibitors names (no change there!) Over 140 visitors, three film crew’s on the day and 12 Exhibitors.

 

The pumping station were great in sorting out our rather strange needs and were over the moon about the attendance (they ran out of bacon in the cafe, apparently the indication of a good day). All proceeds from the day went directly to the Pumping station.

Photos from the day, If you, or your equipment is missing, please email me a picture/video. It was such a busy day I missed a lot of things.

Derek’s (my) Equipment

Sam’s Equipment

Tony/Leicester Hackspace

Alex’s Equipment

Dave’s Equipment

Jason’s Equipment

Roger’s Equipment

Chris’s Equipment

Chris with his Florescent tubes and small radio

Chris’ Battery powered Tesla coil

Andrews Equipment

Earl

After a number of valiant attempts and a few disasters. Earl unfortunately failed to get his coil working. This was a great shame as the travel and effort he put in was huge. I would have loved to see his coil in action again. I especially wanted to see his bottle cap bank in action.

Robert’s Jacobs ladder


Groups

Papplewick Pumping station

A superb venue, although a bit cold, mitigated by a superb on site Cafe…

Cambridge, Derby Teslathon, Nottingham Gaussfest, Other teslathons, Talks, Tesla Coil Building Workshop, Tesla Coils, Teslathons

Gaussfest , Teslathon & tesla workshop/talk Venues needed

EE are actively looking for venues for teslathons in (Ideally, but not restricted to) the East Midlands for this or next year.

Places to hold our events are getting few and far between, mostly because of our “special” requirements.

What is a teslathon : A tesalthon is a meeting of tesla coil enthusiasts. Our tesla coils vary in size from tabletop to 3M tall and are all built by amateurs.

I have been running teslathons for 23 years all over the UK and have Risk assessments and method statements to cover the H&S aspects to our hobby.

So what do we need?

The Must have’s

A room with tables a minimum of 11M x 8M in size, on the ground floor that can be blacked out and a ceiling height of ideally more than 4M. Bigger of course is better. We usually have 20 or so coilers and 30-60 visitors to the events.

Plenty of 13A sockets (for our bigger events, a 32A Commando or accessible cooker socket would be needed, or an electrician on site to give support.)
Some method of providing a separate electrical earth. 10 or more tables.

Tea and coffee making facilities or a cafe is vital 🙂

Other needs (can generally be worked around)

The room needs a minimum (ideally none) of Burglar alarm, Fire alarm or network cables. Electronic lighting can be OK, but they must be high the ceiling. Fire sensors are generally OK, but they must not be of the ionisation type.

Ideal Venues are usually industrial museums or metal skinned warehouses/barns as these have a minimum of electronic equipment. We would like to work with the venues own insurance if possible, but we can provide our own if needed.

I also arrange workshops and talks with lesser requirements, so most venues can be used for something.

We can work in two ways, either a daily rental for the hall, paid by us,or we can work as a ticketed event to raise funds or awareness for a museum, venue or charity.

Before any booking, I would need to assess the venue for safety and suitability.

Have a suitable venue? (Or would like a talk at your venue) contact me tesla@extremeeectronics.co.uk

Details of past events are here  http://www.extremeelectronics.co.uk/nottingham-gaussfest/ and http://www.extremeelectronics.co.uk/cambridge-teslathon/

Nottingham Gaussfest, Teslathons

Nottingham Gaussfest 2017

One of the most popular Gaussfest that I’ve run. Loads of exhibitors and even more HV kit and packed with visitors. A great day, thanks to everyone that attended.

My coils

Jason’s Coil

Dave’s Coils

Alex’s Coils

Robert’s coil

Chris’s Coil

Steve’s Coils

Phillip’s toploads and ring flipper

Tony (Leicester Hack space) Wimshurst and jacob’s ladder

Coil brought to test and get running

 

General Gaussfest photos.

Video from Chris

Nottingham Gaussfest, Teslathons

Nottingham Gaussfest 2016

My Coils, static machines and Twin PiZero TeslaCoils

An amazing day, all my coils and static machines worked from beginning to end with no issues. The VDG performed well after a hail storm had knocked out all of the moisture from the air. It made a huge difference. I did however have a failure the night before the Gaussfest (therefore it cant count as a failure AT the Gaussfest) where I shared the earth from my VDG with the PiZero coils. A strong discharge killed the i2c on my Pi Zero. A swap of PiZeros, a number of downloads and a recompile got me back working in a hour or so. Glad I’d gone with the PIZero saved me £21 over a full Pi Failure.

 

Roger’s VDG


Roger was new to the Gaussfest and brought his commercial VDG, a very nice unit with LOADS of accessories. It ran fairly well during the day after he replaced the original 15year old+ belt. I suspect he suffered with the damp as well, but it didn’t affect his VDG as much as mine, I put this down to a lack leakage from his very smooth top terminal. (The VDG’s not his).

 

Steve’s coils

 

Steve brought a couple of coils and a VDG (sorry no photo) . His desktop Static gap coil was a good solid performer, but his VTTC was just a work of art. It performed well with those lovely straight arcs characteristic of VTTC’s. He vows to return to Cambridge, can’t wait.

 

Jason’s Coil


Jason’s coil ran very well, until he had a capacitor failure, which was a great shame, but hopefully easy to rectify.

Daves coil


Dave’s coil ran well as usual. Superb looking and a very reliable performer. I know Dave has plans for an upgrade, so look forward to the MkII

 

Phil & Phil’s coils


Slow motion (90fps capture)

Phil and Phils coils (now share so many parts I can’t tell them apart, I’m not sure their owners can either). Both coils ran very well giving 8-10′ arcs to the floor,ceiling and occasionally to a target earth. PhilS did have a problem with a stray topload cable that caused a secondary strike

DSC_1425

It didn’t appear to have done much damage, but only a strip down will tell.

 

Thanks to everyone that came and especially those who brought “stuff” to demonstrate. After talking to a couple of non-UK visitors they are very envious of our Teslathons, there are very few across the world, and the UK has two!

DSC_1323

See you all at the next Gaussfest or at Cambridge.

 

Other Photos / links from the event.

Steve Lane

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/+SteveLane/albums/6258914846725227377