Turning a Tesla Coil Into a High-Voltage Plasma Cannon

Electrical engineer Greg Leyh of Lightning On Demand, who is a longtime member of Survival Research Labs, boosted the power of one of his giant, hand-constructed Tesla coils so that it would act as a powerful high-voltage plasma cannon.

Significantly boosting the Tesla tower strike energy by firing a pulse-forming network during the critical transition of the plasma channel.

Leyh goes through the humble beginnings of the Tesla coil, which he found components for in a scrapyard in West Oakland, California.

They had just started to demolish a huge ancient  generator house, and their lot was quickly filling up with tons of quality bus work and switch gear.  Now, any reasonable person who witnessed these piles of scrap would have thought, “Hey, here lies all the parts for a Tesla coil of proper dimensions.”

After explaining how the Tesla coil could be used as a weapon, Leyh tested it, first noting that the most vulnerable part of a “hostile machine” is the gas tank.

So, how effective would the boosted coil tower be against hostile machines?  One critical component on these hostile machines is the fuel tank. It turns out  that fuel tanks made out of steel easily shield the fuel against normal un-boosted  arc discharges. But could a high current  strike actually penetrate the tank wall?  

He also tested it on an old Ford Econoline van, using its fiberglass top as an entry point.

Hostile machines have other susceptible  critical components as well, such as the rubber tires and the electrical  system. To test these possibilities, it’s best to use a full-size test vehicle. Here we have a Ford Econoline 250 with a thick fiberglass top that’s suitable for repelling medium to high voltage attacks.

Leyh Firing His Lorentz Plasma Cannon