Thursday, May 05, 2005
High-voltage machine shrinks quarters to the size of dimes
Wired 13.05: START
Brian Basura may be a bit power-mad. He has sat atop the world's largest Tesla coils while they spat multimillion-volt arcs 20 feet into the air. He has shot white-hot electrical streamers from his fingertips. And he built the Quarter Shrinker you see here.
Nestled in the garage behind Basura's house in Acton, California, the Quarter Shrinker is a 22,000-volt capacitor outfitted with a trigatron, an ultrafast switch he designed. It unleashes 10,000 megawatts of instantaneous energy - roughly equivalent to the output of 10 coal-fired power plants. Basura, a 45-year-old digital-press manager at Crawford Printing, usually focuses all that juice on a US quarter. When he does, the coin doesn't melt or vaporize. Instead, with an ear-shattering crack, its molecules rearrange and nuzzle closer, shrinking the coin's circumference to that of a dime. "It's pretty magical," Basura says. "The first time you see this stuff work and you hear the electricity buzzing in the air - it's absolutely amazing." And it's a relatively cheap thrill: He says his Pacific Gas & Electric bill hasn't been any higher than usual.
- William Gurstelle ¶ 10:47 PM
Brian Basura may be a bit power-mad. He has sat atop the world's largest Tesla coils while they spat multimillion-volt arcs 20 feet into the air. He has shot white-hot electrical streamers from his fingertips. And he built the Quarter Shrinker you see here.
Nestled in the garage behind Basura's house in Acton, California, the Quarter Shrinker is a 22,000-volt capacitor outfitted with a trigatron, an ultrafast switch he designed. It unleashes 10,000 megawatts of instantaneous energy - roughly equivalent to the output of 10 coal-fired power plants. Basura, a 45-year-old digital-press manager at Crawford Printing, usually focuses all that juice on a US quarter. When he does, the coin doesn't melt or vaporize. Instead, with an ear-shattering crack, its molecules rearrange and nuzzle closer, shrinking the coin's circumference to that of a dime. "It's pretty magical," Basura says. "The first time you see this stuff work and you hear the electricity buzzing in the air - it's absolutely amazing." And it's a relatively cheap thrill: He says his Pacific Gas & Electric bill hasn't been any higher than usual.
- William Gurstelle ¶ 10:47 PM
