Do Plasma Balls Give Off Ozone?
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- Опубликовано: 21 сен 2024
- I've been wanting to get back to the plasma balls for a while, so here's a little bit of science for ya. SCIENCE!!!! Enjoy!
Testing Plasma Globes for UV - • More Fun (and Danger) ...
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You pretty much need to be generating arcs outside the globe to produce ozone. Such arcs, and the resulting ozone smell, being one of the joys of playing with Lionel trains as a kid. You can only get a very tiny bit by placing metal near a plasma globe and even touching it will produce a little. In Fran's ozone experiment, nothing was near the globe so I would not have expected much, or any, ozone production. Another test would be to place something near it, or keep touching and untouching it, as that should produce a little ozone and probably enough to measure.
If you want to test for UV (A+B), just hold some paper money next to it and see if the security markers in the paper start to light up. UV-C isn't getting through the glass anyways, even if any was created inside.
Just tried it on my cheap mini eBay plasma globe, didn't see anything. I'll try it again when it's night time and darker and if I see anything, if I do I'll certainly remember to post back.
I also have never smelled any ozone from them (I have 3 in a cluster on a small shelf in the corner).
My thought too, the glass will catch it anyway. If plasma globes actually generated appreciable UV then an ordinary T12 shop light would not be a safe thing to stand under for any length of time.
What about when you put your hands on the globe, don't your hands smell like ozone afterwards?
My hands for sure do smell like ozone so there's at least one way to make it produce ozone if you ask me.
@@RicardoPenders that's corona discharge related, not UVC.
I have one of these in my bedroom from spencer's that has been running continuously for literally 20+ years with a brief 4hr pause 8 years ago when i moved it to my current house. It was the first thing i plugged in when I moved lol. I'll cry if it ever dies
Wow, that's a quality product😀
Sounds like it may outlive you. I'm sure it will miss you when you're gone.
Hmmm. What is a "Monderate" level? Must be a high quality instrument. I do remember smelling the characteristic ozone smell after playing with those cheap plasma globes though.
Just look at them electrons falling off, like @EEVBlog would say.
I remember that CRT static all too well! I also remember doing experiments with deflecting the electron beam with an old loudspeaker magnet :).
Loving your tests and waiting for more!
I read the book Dune when I was a kid, and Frank Herbert talked about the smell of ozone from the shield generators, but I never understood what it smelled like because nobody told me that the rain can sometimes smell like ozone.
Fast forward to mid-2020 and everyone was talking about ozone, I definitely knew what it smelled like by then! I've mentioned it in the comments before, but I was exempted from the lockdown since I worked for a company that was considered an essential service, and I was working in the city office on a project for a few months. The office happened to be in a building that was also the headquarters of a bank, and apparently they decided the best way to fight the plague was to pump high concentrations of ozone into the ventilation system in the building foyer. It was so strong, my eyes would be stinging and my lungs burning in just the 15 seconds it took to walk from the building entrance through the foyer into our office.
I really would've liked an ozone sensor like that, so I could see how strong the ozone really was compared to normal.
For Shai Halud
I used to have a plasma ball and one of those circle plasma plates- when you touched them your fingers would get a very particular odor- I always thought that was ozone, but if I was wrong, what was it? Couldn't have anything to do with UV since the the odor would not emerge when you just put your hands close to the things
I remember watching someone on youtube who brought a so called "air purifier" to a lab and asked a scientist who deals with ozone on a daily basis to test how bad it was, he turned in on and with in seconds the alarm went off in the lab and the scientist was genuinely scared at how much it put out and how bad it was to be in the room with it......really bad things to be around.
From your description the "Ionic Breeze" from SharperImage comes to mind. Those things couldn't have been good to be around for too long lol
I think that was Derek from Veritasium.
@@MegaVoltMeister yep
I'd love to see an episode where you explain and take apart that super nifty Ozone detector!
got one thats been running nearly constanly for 35 years. it does not even get more dusty than the rest of my nick nacks.
Same, I have 3 mini ones that have been running for at least 3 years non stop.
Funny thing is, the cheap ones change over time and the streamers inside them get fatter and slower, the colors also change to a more green hue. I like the way they look now after running for so long.
Ha! You got me beat mine's been going for a lil over 20 years with a 4hr break when I moved. First thing that got plugged in
I think that it is more likely that a poor quality plasma ball would generate ozone not via the plasma itself, but maybe by a poorly built/insulated HV generator that has spurious atmospheric discharges.
For extra fun tune a nearby AM radio off station to a clear spot in the dial. Helps if you have a subwoofer... every time you touch the ball it makes a horrendous (but fun!) noise. Great rhythmic toy.
I worked on copiers in the late 80s. The corona wire that charged the drum would create ozone. I can remember the smell, didn't like it then and still don't.
I bought a plasma glob a long time ago and it still works but I don't leave it on much at all! I think I bought it at Radio Shack some time I'm the 80s, the only time it's even plugged in and on is when my friend kids come over and they love touching it!
I still have my Radio Shack Plasma Globe. It's awesome. Most likely in the 80's it was the higher quality gasses.
common glass block shortwave uv,quartz glass lets uv light pass.
i do not think you will find any of the plasma balls made of quartz glass.
I remember being able to generate ozone with my globe as a child, though, that may have been when I put aluminum foil on it and got it to arc. definitely inadvisable to do that, but still.
Creating visible arcs in the air will ionize and generate ozone in small amounts.
Yup. You can get a nasty arc off one of these by resting a coin on the glass and approaching with a fingertip. You can sustain the arc painlessly by approaching with another coin.
@@FranLab I found this as well with some Aluminium (Aluminum) to you heheh, and I could smell Ozone and when I touch the foil there is a little Arc. It actually feels like a very high frequency RF and burns slightly as Big Clive would say a slight Porky smell.
Very interesting! By the way, usually the conductive coating in the little ball in the middle is graphite paint, not a metal layer.
One of mine that died had a wad of steel wool in the inner bulb. The glass was untreated.
Various methods are used depending on price and quality.
Old laser printers were quite bad - I used to work in an office with a DEC LN03 and that thing could make your eyes sting.
I’ll say this. Plasma Globes may not produce UV, but lava lamps definitely produce infrared;)
What would cause the loud popping noises from a CRT tv when it was turned off?
i dont understan how ozone could POSSIBLY be generated with a fancy lightbulb
Fran, I'm new to your channel as of February 2023. First two videos I watched were your Pee Wee Herman doll repair. I know it's no easy task to go back through 450+ videos, but I think you should rearrange the order of some of the videos in your playlist just so that they play in chronological order and perhaps back to back. Pee Wee#1 and 2 in the #5 and 6 slot, for example.
Did you write and perform your own theme song at the end of your FranLab videos?
I enjoy your style and approach to your videos. Very practical and instructive. I just noticed on the sidebar that you put out a video "...And Why I Can't Wait to Quit RUclips" (haven't actually watched it yet). I abhor their algorithm that can delete a comment without warning. That really pisses me off. But other social media is no better. Some people put their whole lives on Facebook, but I absolutely refuse to use Facebook.
Whatever you decide, I hope you keep your channel up with all of your videos from the previous 10 years or so. Thanks for everything you do!
They may not emit (much) O3 alone, but when the arc forms to an contact it will generate O3 for sure - more so with a better conductor: take a small piece of aluminium foil placed on the glass and it will noticeably generate it - and create painful burning arcs if you approach the foil with your finger or sandwich a piece of paper between the foil and, say, a screwdriver
I used to place a quarter on top of my globe, and touch it with the tip of a real graphite pencil. Makes a ton of arcs near the coin externally and is probably dangerous as I would melt holes through the coin.
I used to smell the telltale ozone then. But only then
Jerry Blavat, The geator with the heater and hot sauce, Legend.
The way you could tell if a TV was REALLY good is if you got right up on the screen and it smelled a little funny. If it does that's a REAL screen you got there!
(But you gotta be careful with the static. Getting shocked on the snoot sucks.)
Fran, you said THAT 4 letter word, now you're gonna get it!
Norf winds blow
Souf winds blow
Typhoons
Hurwicanes
Earfquakes....
SMOGGGG!!!!!
Now back to your regularly scheduled programming .
Even if it did, if you can't smell it, it's at a low enough level to be harmless. I have some high power xenon strobes that will stink the place up in seconds if you operate them at full power in the house, no problem in a large dance venue though. I also have a high power ozone generator which I fire up on its internal timer occasionally to kill mosquitos and other hidden undesirable 'visitors' (you have to leave the house for a couple of hours).
These are legit my favourite toys!!
Thank you ! Have the same, but I think its smells like ozone, but it's only ionized air. Crazy. ❤
Plasma from an old timey two prong carbon arc welder does produce ozone, but the plasma balls are like a neon lamp, a gas rectifier tube or a gas voltage regulator tube. They are hermetically sealed and if the seal breaks the tube stops working. All vacuum tubes give of X rays, but it's usually pretty low intensity, unless you actually do have an X ray tube or a big a** monster radio transmitting tube.
Hi Fran… just curious, does it matter that you have no fingers in contact with the surface of the glass globe? Wikipedia claims: If a hand is placed close to the ball it produces a faint smell of ozone, as the gas is produced by high voltage interaction with atmospheric oxygen. A confounding issue might be a lack of necessary validation, calibration and sensitivity of the ozone meter you used (even though your meter produced no response above background for your usual environment).
it does matter
At my last job, we set up negative ion generators in a " Dillbert box" of cubicles... negative ion generators were popular in the early '90s. Each cubicle had a crt monitor...the whole place wasn't all that well ventilated. I wonder what the ozone level there was ? It was also downtown...
I have a plasma globe that is not one of the cheap ones from the internet, I got mine from a local shop and payed about 40 euro for it... However there's one way that I know it will produce a lot of ozone and that's when I put my hands on the globe, after I do that and smell my hands I know that I smell ozone on my hands, it's that sweet smell that I know for sure is ozone.
So it works like a disinfectant for your hands I think since ozone kills all the bad things, but yeah if you ask me there is one way to make it produce ozone by putting your hands on the globe.
Hey Fran,
My plasma ball does not create ozone by itself. But as soon as I touch it, slightly or firm, and pull back my hand and sniff it, there is a very clear ozone smell coming off my hand.
So if you want, as an additional test you could touch it lightly for a while and than use your ozone detector on the 'touch spot' on your hand. See if it can detect what my sensitive olfactory clearly picks up 😉
I reckon that's your skin getting cooked by the RF energy. Mine does that too, Mmmm smells like chicken. (ok no not chicken ;))
@@markziza Haha 😁, yeah well... that would make for some funky chicken.
Seriously, maybe it's the same effect when you smell your skin just coming out of a hot summer sun bath (that definitely produces some ozone), but exponentially higher because the target wavelength of the plasma ball peaks in the right spot?
Globe by itself won't produce ozone, but if you touch it with your fingers, sniff them and you will feel it. Something needs to be touching the outer electrode of this capacitor to produce very tiny arcs which then act on oxygen molecules.
Volta would have loved to see what became of his baby.
I can imagine such a device generating some ozone if the manufacturing is sloppy enough to create corona problems in the HV supply and wiring, maybe.
I can definitely smell ozone when I’ve been touching the plasma ball... not when it’s at rest; If ozone is what I can smell close to an ionic air purifier. Try sniffing it. Lol
me too. i can ozone after touch the plasma ball for a short while
"Alexa, what should I be terrified of today?"
I believe you 100% that your plasma globes are well made and do not produce ozone.
I cobbled one together using a signal generator, a Delco ignition module, a TV flyback transformer, a light bulb, and clip leads. I did have to try a few clear light bulbs before finding one with a good gas mix to glow well. It'll produce an arc on both sides of the bulb right to my fingers. Since the frequency is high I don't get a shock and the coupling is capacitive and doesn't burn a hole in the glass bulb. But it sure DOES produce ozone, enough to stink up the room and make my eyes burn.
So a GOOD plasma sphere will not produce ozone but a really crappy homemade one will. I'd be surprised if there aren't cheapie ones out there that do produce ozone. Anyway you will know because it will stink.
Hah nice qa on the spelling on the detectOR - monderate instead of moderate!
You have a great ozone detector right there in you... it's your nose. xD We have a weird ability to smell ozone in tiny quantities, for some people it's as low as 0.05 ppm.
Related, you know that smell that comes up with summer rains? It's mainly ozone, mixed with other volatile components.
WMMR Longest Rock and Roll Station in America.
Did they use a getter in that bulb?
My rant detector went off a few times.
Oh, The scene from Goonies. Chunk calling the plasma filaments, laser beams.
How many watts do these things pull?
What does the concentration of O3 have to be before you can start to smell it?
Pretty high usually, but everyone's sense of smell is different.
I can smell Oᴣ at 0.3 ppm
So fun. Thanks!!
Can we trust an ozone detector that misspells "moderate"? 😁
I have a couple globe and they do generate a small amount of ozone. Some much more than others. The smell is unmistakable. Still though they don't generate much compared to laser printers and some other electronics.
It's getting harder to get a really good plasma globe or lava lamp nowadays.
you have to wait a bit.. they where popular in the 70s 90s 2010s...
I mean, if you really want a nice plasma globe they aren't that complicated to construct, glasswork aside, but there are shops for that.
Just go to the China mall, they normally have the plasma globe, but they are expensive. The lava lamps suffer from the need for an incandescent light to provide the heat, so they now use a 3W RGB colour changing LED in the base, and a small SMPS to provide power for it, and then put in a set of ceramic resistors to provide the needed 40W of heat to actually drive the lamp.
Walmart sells the lava lamp brand.
Plasma balls.
Sounds painful.
Wow, this was a really cool video. Thanks.
Suddenly a plasma globe and ozone meter find each other. Going my way..?😊
If you touch it with metal it will make osone.
LOL "they're dangerous" LOL
I've had one since I was 8.
Clearly I'm doing just fine 🤣
Mine looks identical to yours. If its just running on its own, I can't smell ozone. If I run my hand over it, I can. I would not imagine it would make enough to register on a meter.
Strikes me, your theme tune needs more cowbell Fran 🙂.
Add your own cowbell overtop of it to taste.
I carry a cowbell with me at all times for just this purpose!
This test is usually done with a cat in the box.
Amazing content as always.
Well Done....