Handheld Slayer Exciter Wand Makes For Easy High Voltage Magic

January 13, 2021 by Tom Nardi 35 Comments

It’s often said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and when a DIY device lets you light up fluorescent bulbs with a flick of the wrist, it’s certainly not hard to see why. The latest creation from [Jay Bowles], this high voltage wand is actually a Slayer Exciter coil that’s able to boost the output of a standard 9 V alkaline or rechargeable battery high enough to perform some of the wireless power tricks we usually associate with the more complex Tesla coil.

We really can’t overstate how simple it is to build one of these yourself. Sure you’ll still need to wind the coil, but if you can chuck the 1/2 inch acrylic tube into a electric drill you should be able to make short work of it. Once you’ve wound your secondary coil from 32 gauge magnet wire, you only need a couple turns of common doorbell wire to make up the primary.

Think there must be some complex electronics hiding in the handle? Far from it. All that’s hidden by that faux-leather wrapping is a transistor to do the high-speed switching, an LED functioning as both the power indicator and the circuit’s diode, and a resistor. [Jay] put it all together dead bug style, but you could do it on a scrap of perfboard if you’d like something a little more robust.

Being a big believer in STEM education, [Jay] says the wand was designed to be as kid-friendly as possible so he could gift it to his young niece and nephew. Inspiring the next generation is certainly something we respect around these parts, though we think there’s plenty of adults who wouldn’t have been disappointed if they unwrapped a gadget like this over the holidays.

If you’d like to play around with a Slayer but aren’t into the whole Harry Potter motif, you might be interested in the larger and more capable version [Jay] built earlier in the year.

Continue reading “Handheld Slayer Exciter Wand Makes For Easy High Voltage Magic” →

15 Volts To 110,000 Volts

December 14, 2020 by Al Williams 25 Comments

There’s something satisfying about creating high voltages. Sure, there are practical uses like neon signs or doing certain experiments, but be honest — you really just want to see some giant arcs lighting up your dark mad scientist lair. [Mircemk] has just the prescription for what ails you. Using a two-stage approach, he shows a simple setup that generates about 110KV from a pretty tame 15V supply.

From the 15V, there is a stage that uses a flyback transformer and a switch to generate a reasonably high voltage. The final stage is a Cockroft-Walton voltage multiplier that can produce quite a bit of voltage. You can see the impressive arcs in the video below.

The multiplier circuit found fame with experiments by Cockroft and Walton, obviously, but was actually originated in the early 1900s with a physicist named Greinacher. The circuit uses diodes as switches and charges a bank of capacitors in parallel. The discharge, however, puts the capacitors in series. Neglecting losses and loads, the output voltage is equal to the peak-to-peak input voltage times the number of stages present. Real-world considerations mean you won’t quite get that voltage out of it, but it can still provide a potent punch. Click through the break for a video of the circuit in action!

Continue reading “15 Volts To 110,000 Volts” →

DIY High Voltage Kirlian Photography Rig

November 15, 2020 by Lewin Day 4 Comments

High voltage is a fun, if dangerous, thing to play with. [Mirko] is an enthusiast in this space, and built a high-voltage Kirlian photography device that’s capable of creating some stunning images.

The construction of the device itself is basic. High-frequency, high-voltage electricity is connected to a metal object placed on one side of a glass plate. On the other side, salt water is pooled, and connected to a second electrode. This creates a transparent window through which the electrical discharge can be viewed either by eye or with a digital camera. Historically, this was done with photographic film in place of the transparent window, but the principle is the same.

Popular in the paranormal and alternative medicine spaces, the actual scientific application of Kirlian photography is minimal. Rather, it’s an interesting way to explore high voltages that creates some pretty results! If you find yourself becoming a fan of high voltage, you might also consider your own Tesla coil build, too. Video after the break.

Continue reading “DIY High Voltage Kirlian Photography Rig” →

This (mostly) Transparent Tesla Coil Shows It All

October 20, 2020 by Tom Nardi 11 Comments

You’d be forgiven for assuming that a Tesla coil is some absurdly complex piece of high-voltage trickery. Clarke’s third law states that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”, and lighting up a neon tube from across the room sure looks a lot like magic. But in his latest Plasma Channel video, [Jay Bowles] tries to set the record straight by demonstrating a see-through Tesla coil that leaves nothing to the imagination.

Of course, we haven’t yet mastered the technology required to produce transparent copper wire, so you can’t actually see through the primary and secondary coils themselves. But [Jay] did wind them on acrylic tubes to prove there aren’t any pixies hiding in there. The base of the coil is also made out of acrylic, which lets everyone see just how straightforward the whole thing is.

Beyond the coils, this build utilizes the DIY high-voltage power supply that [Jay] detailed a few months back. There’s also a bank of capacitors mounted to a small piece of acrylic, and a clever adjustable spark gap that’s made of little more than a few strategically placed pieces of copper pipe and an alligator clip. Beyond a few little details that might not be obvious at first glance, such as grounding the secondary coil to a layer of aluminum tape on the bottom of the base, it’s all right there in the open. No magic, just science.

[Jay] estimates this beauty can produce voltages in excess of 100,000 volts, and provides a demonstration of its capabilities in the video after the break. Unfortunately, before he could really put the new see-through coil through its paces, it took a tumble and was destroyed. A reminder that acrylic enclosures may be pretty, but they certainly aren’t invulnerable. With the value of hindsight, we’re sure the rebuilt version will be even better than the original.

If you’d rather not have your illusions shattered, we’ve seen plenty of complex Tesla coils to balance this one out. With witchcraft like PCB coils and SMD components, some of them still seem pretty magical.

Continue reading “This (mostly) Transparent Tesla Coil Shows It All” →

Upgrading A Classic Function Generator

October 20, 2020 by Bryan Cockfield 8 Comments

If you need an oscilloscope, function generator, or other piece of kit for your electronics workbench, there are plenty of modern options. Dropping $4,000 for a modern oscilloscope is nice if you have the money, but if you’d rather put it to better use there are great options that don’t cost a fortune. There are some addons that can turn a smartphone into an oscilloscope but one of the best values out there are older pieces of equipment from the 80s that still work great. You can even upgrade them with some more modern features too, like [NFM] did with this vintage function generator.

This function generator is an HP3325A and it is several decades old, so some work was needed just to restore it to original working condition. The cooling fan and capacitors all needed to be replaced, as well as a few other odds and ends. From there [NFM] set about adding one of the two optional upgrades available for this device, the high voltage output. This allows the function generator to output 40 volts peak-to-peak at 40 milliamps. While he did have an original version from HP, he actually had a self-made design produced that matches the function of the original.

Even if you don’t have this specific function generator, this guide goes into great details about the functioning of older equipment like this. Most of the parts are replaceable and upgrades aren’t completely out of the question like some modern equipment, and with the right care and maintenance these pieces of equipment could last for decades longer.

Continue reading “Upgrading A Classic Function Generator” →

DIY Lasers Hack Chat

October 5, 2020 by Dan Maloney 10 Comments

Join us on Wednesday, October 7th at noon Pacific for the DIY Lasers Hack Chat with Les Wright!

It’s not too much of a reach to say that how we first experienced the magic of lasers sort of dates where we fall on the technology spectrum. For the youngest among us, lasers might have been something trivial, to be purchased for a couple of bucks at the convenience store. Move back a few decades and you might have had to harvest a laser from a CD player to do some experiments, or back further, perhaps you first saw a laser in high school physics class, with that warm, red-orange glow of a helium-neon tube.

But back things up only a few decades before that, and if you wanted to play with lasers, you had to build one yourself. It was a popular if niche hobby with a dedicated following of amateur physicists who scrounged around for the unlikely parts needed: ruby rods, quartz-glass tubes, and exotic dyes. Couple them together with high-voltage power supplies, vacuum pumps made from converted refrigerator compressors, and homemade optical benches, and if the stars aligned, these parts could be coaxed into producing a gloriously intense burst of light, which as often as not hooked its creator as a lifelong laser addict.

We’re not sure which camp Les Wright falls into, but from the content of his growing YouTube channel, we’d say he’s caught the laser bug. We recently took a look at his high-performance nitrogen laser, which he’s been having fun with as the basis for a tunable dye laser. Along the way he’s been necessarily mucking around with high-voltage power supplies, oscilloscopes, and the occasional robot or two.

Les will stop by the Hack Chat to talk about everything going on in his lab, with a focus on his laser experiments. Join us with your questions on DIY lasers, and stop by to pick up some tricks that might help you catch the laser bug too.

Our Hack Chats are live community events in the Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, October 4 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones baffle you as much as us, we have a handy time zone converter.

Click that speech bubble to the right, and you’ll be taken directly to the Hack Chat group on Hackaday.io. You don’t have to wait until Wednesday; join whenever you want and you can see what the community is talking about.

Continue reading “DIY Lasers Hack Chat” →

Into The Plasmaverse Hack Chat

September 21, 2020 by Dan Maloney 1 Comment

Join us on Wednesday, September 23 at noon Pacific for the Into the Plasmaverse Hack Chat with Jay Bowles!

Most kids catch on to the fact that matter can exist in three states — solid, liquid, and gas — pretty early in life, usually after playing in the snow a few times. The ice and snowflakes, the wet socks, and the fog of water vapor in breath condensing back into water droplets all provide a quick and lasting lesson in not only the states of matter but the transitions between them. So it usually comes as some surprise later when they learn of another and perhaps more interesting state: plasma.

For the young scientist, plasma is not quite so easy to come by as the other phases of matter, coming about as it does from things they’re usually not allowed to muck with. High voltage discharges, strong electromagnetic fields, or simply a lot of heat can strip away electrons from a gas and make the ionized soup that we call plasma. But once they catch the bug, few things can compare to the dancing, frenetic energy of a good plasma discharge.

Jay Bowles picked up the plasma habit quite a while back and built his YouTube channel around it. Tesla coils, Van de Graaff generators, coils and capacitors of all types — whatever it takes to make a spark, Jay has probably made and used it to make the fourth state of matter. He’ll join us on the Hack Chat to talk about all the fun things to do with plasma, high-voltage discharge, and whatever else sparks his interest.

Our Hack Chats are live community events in the Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, September 23 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones baffle you as much as us, we have a handy time zone converter.

Continue reading “Into The Plasmaverse Hack Chat” →