While playing chiptunes, creating lightning, and illuminating fluorescent tubes with a homebrew Tesla coil is awesome, they’re not exactly the safest electrical devices around, and certainly aren’t easy or cheap to build. There’s another option open if you’d like to play with strong electromagnetic fields; it’s called the Slayer exciter and is simple enough to light a few fluorescent bulbs wirelessly off a pair of 9 Volt batteries.
The circuit for the Slayer exciter is extremely simple – just a single power transistor, a few diodes, and a couple of resistors. The real power for this build comes from the custom-wound transformer made from more than 100 feet of magnet wire. After plugging the driver circuit into the transformer’s primary winding and connecting a metal ball (in this case a wooden ball covered in aluminum foil), it’s possible to light up a four Watt fluorescent tube with a pair of 9 Volts.
You can check out a video of the Slayer exciter after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu9Go-JEIK4&w=580]
So it’s easy to make, looks like a ball of death, lights shit up and is called a Slayer Exciter? That’s so much win in one place.
This could be fun in a portable package, bringing it to the store and test the bulbs while still in the self! :-D
I like that idea :)
Oh btw, if you hold a tube or energysaving bulb near a plasma globe it’ll also light up.
It’s not obvious to me that is not the same as a tesla coil. Like a tesla coil it is nothing more than a high voltage high frequency transformer. Do you know a flyback transformer from a crt tv would do the same? The output from a flyback is about 25kv at 15khz.
Tesla coils have self-resonance, or something. A capacitor’s important in the circuit.
WARNING: flyback can injure badly or event kill. I don’t hold responsible for any injury or dead. Try it at you own risk.
Remember, it’s not voltage that kill but current and a few mA thrue the heart is enough to kill. Nevertheless for those curious to try, here some advises:
1) To disconnect the flyback from the CRT aquadag use a long shaft screwdriver, wrap a wire connected to ground to the shaft and hold the srewdriver by the handle. The aquadag can keep charge for a long while.
2) Remove the high voltage diode at the output of flyback.
3) connect the flyback output to the hollow metallic ball and open the tv set and your done.
I would say that it’s similar, only in this case the ‘tank’ (driver) circuit frequency is defined by the cut-off created in the primary winding when the field collapses. I can’t remember exactly how the frequency is determined, but it’s mostly just a different mechanism here. The system is likely way off resonance here, since the tank and secondary+topload are not matched. If you were to control the frequency externally (ie. no free-run), you’d likely get better performance. ;)
To wit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=YVEDGg43ZR8&feature=endscreen&hd=1
Not that that one is less dry than the featured video, and more ‘mad’
Resonance transformer that automatically adjusts too the self resonance frequency of the coil. Or LC-Oscillator where the gain in the loop is not 1 but hopefully bigger.
The parisit capacity of the Coil builds the Capacity of LC-Oscillator.
Capacitive currents flow out in the air and can couple to things in the environment. If there is something to couple too.
The circuit is not closed any more -> Or if you want wireless electricity
caculate self resonant frequency of a coil: http://www.extremeelectronics.co.uk/calcs/index.php?page=isol.php
i would explain it this way.
slayer, kurwa! :D
100 feet of magnet wire? Pffft. We all know the Slayer exciter runs on pure brutality.
Wow was surprised this made it here, haven’t checked up on the project in awhile and I’m happy to hear people still have interest in it and that someone made an instructable.
I like the CFL bulb and the static. Just last week I was taking off a sweater in the dark and noticed an adjacent CFL start blinking. I thought I was just drunk, but it was SCIENCE!
Lamps, detecting sweater-removal since last week!
You can also buy these at slayerexciter.com from Slayer himself. A great looking kit for the price.
Oh! What an interesting video – a background of random noise and a text overlay of “This video is private” – how unique!
If we can according rectenna like the stuff of jes Ascanius with the slayer we not need battery, what do you thank?