Ask Greg Leyh of The Lightning Foundry What Charges Him Up?

Greg Leyh is an electrical engineer who has spent most of his career working around particle accelerators and high-voltage machinery. Recently Leyh has been working on The Lightning Foundry, a project to see if humans can replicate the voltage economy effect of lightning. With the help of a Kickstarter campaign and a pair of 10-story Tesla Coil towers he hopes to generate man-made lightning. Greg has agreed to take some time away from his lightning machines and answer your questions. Ask as many as you like but please confine your questions to one per post.

Looks Like a Lofty Kickstarter Goal

[eldavojohn]

Your kickstarter page lists a goal of some $348,000 to do the full experiment as per your cost breakdown [lod.org]. You are now at $32,000 with five days to go meaning some of these components are not going to be affordable. Could you please explain what is being cut or if you're doing the experiment at all?

AC/DC

[Anonymous Coward]

A Quick question: How exactly does AC electrical arcs produced by a Tesla coil help us understand the naturally occurring DC lightning produced by clouds?
Are not the two vastly different?

FCC and friends

[vlm]

Short format: Are you going for 47 C.F.R. 15 sub B class A or class B? Just kidding, sorta.

Long format: Whats your plans regarding radio interference? Like, are you making a whopping big faraday cage out of an abandoned condo building, or have a FCC exemption under some R+D rule, or ... I'm just picturing armies of angry radio listeners storming your building with pitchforks...

I'm not sure I understand what this guy is trying

[JohnVKaravitis]

John V. Karavitis I'm not sure what this guy is trying to accomplish. Is this some kind of experiment into understanding the nature of lightning (don't we already understand how lightning works???), or is he trying to harness the power of lightning for commercial purposes? And what about the link that he provides, that shows a lightning discharge off of what seems like a large transformer? I think that, if someone posts an article or starts a topic thread here, we should at least be given the courtesy of an explanation. Thank you. John Karavitis