Author Topic: With limited knowledge in electronics, I made a Cockroft-Walton generator  (Read 2611 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline joeqsmith

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 11601
  • Country: us
Safety wise rarely I work with anything too risky.  I tend to keep my distance, wear gloves, use a chicken stick follow the basic one hand rule.   I have one chicken stick with various resistors and an LED to discharge kV type caps.   

Outside an old NST and a high current kVDC supply, the only thing that concerns me is a small transient generator I put together to test handheld meters.  One can put out 20J at about 6kV over 10s of us.  It has so many safety features designed it, it's very low risk to operate.    The other is low voltage but can deliver about 600J over 10s of ms.    Nothing like Photonicinductions death experiments but certainly enough to be lethal.    Because of how it works, that system is far from safe.  I strap the outputs before handling the meters that are connected to it.  I also keep my distance, not because of the high voltage but sometimes I will get debris flying through the air.   I also wear eye protection for the same reason.   I made a box with a Lexan cover to hold the meters but normally run them with the door open to get a better camera shot.   

I've used light bulbs for test loads and have had them along with some glass fuses come apart.  If I am playing with anything glass and high energy where there is a potential for shards of glass to be flying around the office, I contain it. 

Outside of that, I keep Halon in the office.  Keep the critters out of the office if working with anything risky.  Warn my wife.

Offline zeal422Topic starter

  • Contributor
  • Posts: 28
  • Country: ro
That's I think the biggest tesla coil I have ever seen :) That's more than impressive!

Of course I too follow the one hand rule or the 'pocket hand', never touching with both hands. I too made a chicken stick from PVC (weird name, I have to find out where that chicken stick name came from), one with a 30W load resistor so I can discharge big caps without sparks and one just a isolated conductor for sparks.

Unfortunately I don't have the resource to get a NST here, you have to know somebody in the domain. I will look for other alternatives.

I want to see some of your builds if that's possible :)

Also I bet your wife is not worried at all (sarcasm)
« Last Edit: June 03, 2023, 07:01:58 pm by zeal422 »
 

Offline joeqsmith

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 11601
  • Country: us
Many of my home projects are posted on EEVBLOG or my YT channel.  I doubt you would have much of interest as many of them have nothing to do with high voltage or sparks.   My most recent experiments have been with waveguides (just some metal tubes).    There's a thread in the RF section. 

Offline zeal422Topic starter

  • Contributor
  • Posts: 28
  • Country: ro
Small update:

I didn't have the time to thinker more because of work but I finally had some free time to test if the 5kV HID / HPS ignitor would work as a driver, and it seems to do it's job.

https://i.imgur.com/YmdT9vr.mp4

Now all that remains is to wait for the HV caps and diodes from China and build the circuit, encase it in... I was thinking a PVC pipe with screwable caps, fill the thing with mineral oil, maybe johnson and johnson, and seal it up.

Will update as the project goes further :)
« Last Edit: June 12, 2023, 08:21:52 pm by zeal422 »
 

Offline zeal422Topic starter

  • Contributor
  • Posts: 28
  • Country: ro
Update: https://i.imgur.com/sbpy7JL.mp4

I got my hands on 2 flyback transformers and finally found the primary and the ground on these... that took a while... Now I just need a bigger driver because what you see there is just a pewny CFL circuit board from an old flourescent lamp bulb. Chat GPT told me I cannot drive a flyback with that... Well robots are not there yet.

Now I wait for the diodes and condensators... still, and we shall make the big cockcroft... accent on croft.  ;D
 


Share me

Digg  Facebook  SlashDot  Delicious  Technorati  Twitter  Google  Yahoo
Smf