Kerala-based Scientist creates Tesla Coil, Video Goes Viral

Thiruvananthapram: V S Sabu of Thiruvallam in Thiruvananthapram, an amateur scientist, who recreated the 19th century Tesla coil developed by Nikola Tesla, the Serbian-American inventor, that allows wireless transfer of electricity, has gone viral with around 4 million science enthusiasts from across the world, watching the video of the over-a-century-old invention in Instagram and YouTube.

Sources said that though it was invented by Nikola Tesla, it had not created an industrial revolution, coil producing high-voltage, low-current, high-frequency alternating-current electricity is still the attraction of science buffs.

It is to be mentioned that Sabu created the first robot in India (autonomous) in 1987, converts 230 Volts input to 3 lakhs Volts output. An LED bulb which holds near the coil will light up when the electricity jumps into the bulb from the coil which can be seen by the eyes. Earlier, the Tesla coil circuits were used commercially in spark-gap radio transmitters for wireless telegraphy until the 1920s, and in medical equipment such as electrotherapy and violet ray devices.

The main usage of the robot is for entertainment and educational displays, although small coils are still used as leak detectors for high vacuum systems. Read more

Sabu said that he began to experiment with the coil out of a sheer passion for this equipment, which the modern-day science buffs or engineering students are not familiar with. This is because the technology is not widely used in commercial applications. Also Read[52 Years Later, People are Thanking Lupe Hernández, the Woman Behind the Hand Sanitiser]

"But the video of the coil I generated which was then posted in social media had gone viral within days, and interestingly the lion's share of the responders were students from India, apart from some media houses like Caters News Agency, UK's leading independent photo and news agency," he added.

According to the reports, he set up the Tesla coil during the lockdown period in 2020. This is a tribute to Nikola Tesla and he dedicates this project to the young innovative minds of India. Tesla coil, invented in 1891, works by spark gap technology. He has set up a solid-state Tesla coil of 2kW with input voltage 230V and an output of 300kV, controlled using a semiconductor called insulated-gate bipolar transistor. This is the Tesla coil with the largest ion propulsion thrust he has ever seen in my career, though it is not the largest Tesla coil by size.

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