Some of you probably have plans to build your own spaceships, we know we do. Well, the propulsion system can be a bit tricky, especially if you plan on using plasma drives. This breakdown and build of a simple plasma thruster should help you on your way. All you really need is some Argon, a large capacitor bank, and a custom nozzle. You’ve already got most of that right? As usual, be very careful. This is high voltage and very hot.
For those unfortunate few of you who don’t already have a plasma cutter sitting around, [jandgse812] is here to help. He walks you through the process of building your own plasma cutter from scratch. Adding up the list of parts brings the total project to roughly $300. He has included visual diagrams for all the wiring as well as specific part numbers and where to get them. Be careful, this is potentially very dangerous, but also very cool. You may need to get a copy of the mission impossible theme to play whenever you use it. At least, that’s what [jandgse812] recommends. You can see a video of it in action after the break.
[Richard] took another shot at his battery powered tesla coils. He sent in his latest hand held plasma gun. He modified his battery powered tesla coil to work as a handheld. He added a large copper pad to the drill handle to couple the RF ground to the human torch holding it.. Sure, we’ve seen plenty of tesla lately, but who here wouldn’t want one? (Maybe the guy in the server room…)
All the parts needed are listed – just be sure you fully understand everything before you get into this one.
Every so often I learn a new microwave trick. [skuhl] sent in this …. myspace video. It appears that with a microwave, a jar and a candle to get things going, you can create you r very own plasma in a jar. You’ll probably kill your microwave doing this, but damn it looks cool.
