The problem is that the primary winding's inductance is so low that the circuit oscillates in the HFs - 10MHz or more. From tests I've made the frequency is very poorly determined and it's more like a spark gap jamming Device. Fortunately it's low power. The exciter I built used a BD433 transistor and a power supply voltage of 8 volts and about 200 mA current. The arc will burn a tiny pinhole in the skin of my finger. 😮
Is the voice coil a single layer of windings? AFAIK all Tesla coils use single layers. The voltage gradient along the coil is very steep and I believe there is a risk of insulation breakdown if a second layer of turns is added, effectively laying down high voltage turns directly onto low voltage turns.
@@williamfraserOn a larger scale, you're still using three components with a power transistor and a chunky HV capacitor, and you don't even need insulated wire, you can separate layers with graphene or nashua duct tape (just stretch the rubber to peel it off the metal first lol. Your circuit lights all fluorescent tubes in the room and reverberates for twenty-plus minutes using copper tubing for the primary and scrap HV city wire separated by nashua with the windings spaced as closely as possible without closing the circuit through the air. Portable harmonic oscillator has many applications. Most of them are kind of nefarious, but your circuit is quite the feat. You earned a subscriber with alerts turned on with this one. 😅
The piezo ignition is funny because some years ago a buddy told me to do that, but he said "use a lighter". So I ended up using something like an enclosed phototransistor on the base with only a pinhole for light to travel to it, and using an actual flint ignited lighter to spark enough light in front of the hole to turn the transistor on. Meanwhile I could have just grabbed a grill lighter haha.
@@zeekjones1 The days when the 100th Slayer Exciter build started getting boring without some kind of twist, but was still too scared and unskilled to journey into different circuits.
I’m just getting into electronics(started this year) but he explained well. the concepts presented clicked with my current understanding and knowledge. Now I have more interesting things to look into. Good work.
Using the piezo-electric firestarter reminded me that I had a odd "remote controlled" robot dinosaur as a child that used a piezo-electric trigger remote to signal the dinosaur to perform an action. This would have been all the way back in the in the 1980's, but it was one of those clever Japanese toys, and I hadn't thought about it until watching your video.
Using oscilloscope probe with ground lead just clamped to tip creates 1 single turn pickup and can be used to watch the oscillations... A cheap 1Gsps scope with 30+ MHz bandwidth is enough.
Great creation, very small part count and physical size due to the simplicity and monolithic-esque design. As you say, the fluorescent bulb going out doesn't mean the circuit shut down. The field was just too weak to sustain ionization. Assuming the load characteristics don't change too much, perhaps if the open wire were connected to the filament wire that reaches inside the bulb, the weakened field would radiate a bit more proximately to the gas for ionization, allowing it to stay luminous through lower input voltages. Further, heating the body of the NPN as much as possible (ideally to its maximum operating junction temperature) would decrease the base-emitter turn-on voltage by a few hundred millivolts and further increase forward current gain. A PTC resistor epoxied and insulated with the transistor, or even a source of (non burning) waste heat would do. JFETS would also be a great alternative to BJTs to allow even lower voltages. I've built a couple joule thieves and one 12V slayer circuit before, but haven't seen the supercap used with them. It's a nice low impedance voltage source for the coil. Though, I wonder what its high frequency impedance looks like compared to ceramics. I would guess the performance suffers without a few low capacitance ceramics in parallel.
Tried underdriving an unmodified slayer with a BD243C BJT, red LED, 1.2kOhm resistor, and 200nF of ceramic capacitance. Got down to 2.08V before the PL-S fluorescent tube extinguished and the circuit failed to relight with a piezo striker. The circuit further oscillates down to 1.4V without ionizing anything. Preheating at full power to a case temperature of 135ºC and then underdriving did NOT produce the results I expected (lower minimum input voltage operation). The circuit would extinguish at 2.5V and would not relight with emfs below that. Reducing case temperature to -18ºC, however, did allow me to reduce input voltage further to 2.03V with a base-emitter peak voltage of 1.08V and DC current of 140mA. So while higher temps _should_ offer higher gain and lower base-emitter voltage drop (as much as 200mV), this high power BJT performed better with even lower gain and higher Vbe. Actually, rather than these parameters being relevant, I noticed its transition frequency is 3MHz yet the circuit it was designed for exceeds it at 3.6Mhz. This means gain is affirmatively below unity (1) at my frequency, fractional even. By comparison, the 2N3904 has a transition frequency of 300MHz, so there wouldn't be significant attenuation of gain due to frequency and it may still benefit from some thermally driven tweaks to its properties before needing to change transistor technologies.
The ceramic cap definitely makes a difference, at least when there is a resistor on the base. Another place where I tried two parallel but opposite facing LED's is between the positive terminal of the supercap and the resistor. Both LED's lit up so I assume the primary also creates a reverse pulse, perhaps induced by the secondary, that stores some energy in the ceramic cap before the new cycle starts. Just guessing here, if you have a scope you can test it! I also had success with a 2N7000 mosfet with nothing but the secondary on the gate. It was an easy substitute on the breadboard because the equivalent pinout is the same order as the 3904. Adding a gate pull-up resistor just resulted in overheating and no pulsing. Adding a pull down resistor worked well, even without a pull-up. The circuit can be started by simply touching the tip of the secondary, no emp required. What worked best was using an led between ground and gate and another between gate an positive (cathode goes to positive). Both light up strongly so the secondary reverse pulse must be pushing the gate well above positive. The LED's should also provide protection for the gate against Vgs limits.
@@williamfraser I'll find some time to do that, but rather than modify my slayer kit which is rather inconvenient to partake, I'll repeat the same breadboard layout you have and wind a new coil so we have similar attributes. Was there any reason for the 80T and diameter? Going for a specific coil inductance, ratio, time constant, or something else?
@@InfinionExperiments I made the 28mm coil years ago, I don't recall why I decided on such a low turn count, it would not have been based on any electronic property, more likely just to explore the limits of what might work. Small coils with high length to diameter ratios all seemed to require ferrite cores to work well while the short wide coils work well without ferrite.
@@williamfraser🤔 could you use this and step up the power and voltage with 2-car generators that diodes being used as the three leads on a AC generator. Run a distribution panel and about 90 amps and 120?
Trial and error! I have seen several topics on piezo crystals used in gimmick emp devices. Some other methods of induction also worked, all involving sparks, like shorting a large capacitor next to the coil. The lighter was just far more convenient.
The "trick with the lighter" would not be needed if the base bias resistor was not removed. The resistor is so inexpensive that it should not have been removed. 😮 🤨
@@cornishcat11 Transistors are current operated devices; therefore the base should **always** have base bias current, no matter how small. The base bias could be as low as a microamp, through a 10 megohm resistor. You said it's "only 3 components" but it's *not!* The fourth component is the lighter - without it, the circuit won't start! 😈😳
This is actually pretty incredible I'd be very interested in a load test to see how many lights or how long a light can be on. I'd also be very interested in knowing more ways it could be powered even if they are less effective than the lighter.
touching the lead probably would also trigger it especially if you are inside a building, or if you also touch the + wire. connecting the gound to the earth and then letting a kite with a rope wet in salt watter fly up and either getting close enough to it, or making it touch the middle terminal should also trigger it, if the kite is high enough and if the salt water is of the right concentration then you might not need to ground it.
The spark from the lighter simply induces the first pulse to trigger the transistor (if that is the correct term). The power for the oscillation comes from the supercap which acts as a low capacity rechargeable battery with low ESR. It still needs recharging from an external source.
in place of resistor you can put a small capacitor and at the right value capacitance, when you power on the circuit the cap allows just enough current thru to switch the transistor and get the circuit oscillating.
I gave it a try, used various ceramic caps from 10nF and up to 220uF. It would not start, even when using the emp. When I added a 10k resistor in series it started (using the base-emitter LED as an indicator). A diode or LED in series it also worked (anode to positive). To start a second time the cap first had to be discharged.
I love small circuits like this, I wonder if placing the cap inside the secondary coil would affect its performance, but I'm sure it'll look even more cute
That was my initial intention, making it even more compact. It didn't work for me but there must be a way. A ferrite sleeve around the cap to provide some magnetic shielding perhaps, or simply adding proper insulation around the top of the cap housing.
Try that with the push button piezo from a gas grill. All it needs is a wire antenna about 1 inch to broadcast the pulse. Excellent fractional energy driver research.
For the dummies here, what is it used for in practice? Does it start and maintain ionization in fluorescent bulbs, or is that just used to illustrate the field and there are other uses?
At this small scale, probably nothing more than an educational circuit or a party-trick gadget. The neon tube is just to show the field and gauge its output power. I have not heard of it being used in fluorescent lighting as such. According to Wikipedia (see "Tesla Coil") modern applications are in arc welding and for leak detection in vacuum vessels (the coil needs enough power to create a coronal discharge, the arcs are drawn to any tiny hole in the vessel, making it possible to visually identify it.)
Tesla coils are a technology developed by Nikola Tesla in his intellectual pursuit of abundance of energy from the natural world such as self-acting engines, transmitters and collectors of atmospheric electricity, as well as functional wireless power for the 19th and 20th century industrialists developing infrastructure for New York and other cities in the Americas. Today we have had the means to popularize some of the patents, essays, and ideas for tesla but not so much the big picture of its functional purpose. Yeah there practical applications for this specific device for education and testing, but there is a deeper problem or challenge to overcome that was left by the man.
Could try the ZTX 653 audio driver transistor. A reason given is it's higher breakdown voltage rating. The forward gain is however lower than the 2N2222A.
What about pulling voltage out of the air provided it's enough to light a tube? Start it with a power source, lights the tube and it runs down to a point that the voltage pulled out of the air sustains the illumination indefinitely. Might need a really large antenna to get enough power for sustainment. The power would be from either static or other EMF sources such as power wires or transmitters.
Tesla pulled electricity out the sky, every 1 metre you go up from the ground the voltage goes up 100 volts, you would only need to go 2.4metres to get 240 volts.
Made a voltaic pile using 16 logs, a carbon steel screw in one end each log, a piece of copper wire in the centre of each log, and a piece of copper wire connecting the screw of one log to the copper wire of the next until all logs were connected in series. Managed to get 12.34 volts out the end and it powered an LED continuously- forever if the logs never dried out (if i used a growing tree rather than a chopped up one)
could put a starting cap of 0.1uf or less from v+ to base. would do the same as resistor but in a burst. however, you may need a series diode to prevent it from becoming resonator.
Got working just as you suggested. A series 10k resistor also worked instead of the diode. The cap had to be discharged first before I can start it a second time.
Awesome 😁 Quick Question... Would this be "triggered" by a weaponized style EMP? Also, would this be triggered by a "concerning sized" coronal mass ejection, and if not could it be "tuned" to do so?
I suppose it depends on the flux density at the coil. If the source is too far away it simply would not induce enough current to trigger the transistor. A frequency close to the resonant frequency will probably work better.
If you know ANYTHING about TELAS. You know the Capacitor and inductor has to be in Resonance. C1uF to L1uH makes it like a spring. P.s. there NEEDS to be a ground
@@ZomB1986 when he touches the 1 wire HE becomes ground. there is no ground. the FREE air as in the atmosphere is a capacitor. That is what lighting happens witch is a short. So your saying you are grounding in the middle of a capacitor?
Do not eliminate the shunt diode across the BE junction of the transistor! Doing so subjects the BE junction to reverse breakdown. The diode should be a high-speed diode.
Currently you are forcing negative current from the base, which can degrade a transistor's Hfe. It's hard to predict the base current especially if you consider ESD. The positive base current could also in theory be excessive. In order to keep oscillating, the coil must be able to supply not only the minimum required base drive current, but also the base charge required at a given frequency. So basically for lowest input voltage you want to match the effective coil secondary impedance with the transistor input impedance at low battery voltage. This may not give the best performance at full charge.
Interesting. I was wondering about the effect of high frequency on the transistor and, in the Slayer circuit, the LED. I believe the LED is supposed to clamp the negative voltage on the base, but is that still the case at >10MHz? And does the transistor still behave the same as at low frequency? The mere fact that a single turn primary works has me wondering how the various loops in the slayer circuit (e.g. the loop from the base to the collector via the resistor, or the loop containing the LED and base-emitter diode) are affected by being so close to the secondary coil's EM fields.
@@williamfraser I was going off your prototype which doesn't have any LEDs. A E-B LED will clamp the reverse base voltage to the LED forward voltage and protect the base from that kind of degradation (but may also reduce performance). This is very speculative on my part and I haven't really seen any hard data on what it takes to degrade a BJT base, but seeing how the load current must all go through the NPN base triggers my best practice instincts. A 2N3904 base is probably very robust, unlike something like a MPSA18 which has a lot of intrinsic base resistance and a very thin base (and probably wouldn't work with this circuit anyway). The main danger to me is an arc or sudden discharge because the coil capacitance discharging through an arc could generate extremely high momentary currents, which is the reason ESD kills semiconductors. But thinking about this again, if we look at the human discharge model of ESD, this tiny coil wouldn't have nearly the amount of charge that a human can. So maybe it is perfectly fine. Another possibility is because electrons emit while holes don't, if the circuit is floating it could develop a strong charge itself which could discharge upon contact with something. At any rate, if I were worried about it I would leave it running on a wall wart indefinitely and see if it degrades. That may be the only real way to satisfactorily answer the question.
@@williamfraser At just 7MHz I measured 7-12V pk-pk across a 3mm LED with a min of over -5V and max over 6V. The reality is these LEDs are extremely slow, even though they do light up, its a false indication that they are clamping. Through-hole LEDs have long wire leads, and then they have long bonding wires connecting the leads to the PN inside the optical reflector, meaning they will have high parasitic and junction capacitance (could slow down rise and fall time of the transistor). If you wanted to improve performance while keeping the visual effect, replacing the package with an SMD LED would be an improvement, something that is as small as possible being the best choice. Red LEDs are a good choice because of the low forward voltage, but amber or infrared would transition faster. A better option is signal diodes, better yet is zener diodes, but the best option is TVS diodes. A TVS diode can offer unidirectional and bidirectional clamping, and packages are designed to minimize parasitic inductance and capacitance by using packages that don't use any bonding wires (i.e DFN, BGA), and it gets as low as femtofarads. Lastly, they handle huge pulse power and you can select the exact working voltage, breakdown, and clamping voltages along the knee of the diode. If you still wanted LED indication, you could connect a sense resistor in series and use a comparator, logic IC (buffer amplifier, logic gates, translators), a current monitor, or any small signal conditioning IC or discrete component to do the indicating.
Greetings from ChCh, New Zealand ..... Very Clever indeed .... Loved the 'Progress' to get to this Super Simple circuit .... I might be mistaken .... Groot Groete 'Japie' :-) :-) :-)
Did you measure the HFE of the transistor? I am interested in what the gain is. Also you state supercapacitor but can you give us the source? I would like to recreate this but with a slight variance and I have an interesting idea.
I don't know the HFE in operation, or how to measure it. The very proximity of test leads seem to alter the circuit's output (neon tube brightness). The supercap is a run of the mill 10F Kamcap I bought from Mantech.co.za.
As I understand it, the cap assists the battery in supplying the high current demand when the transistor is on. This is most noticeable when using NiCad batteries with high internal resistance.
excellent idea friend, you can improve the circuit, removing the leds that you have at the base of the collector and putting those leds in the emitter and their outputs connect one to the positive and the other to the negative of the capacitor so that the capacitor is charging all the time , and reconnect the line that you removed from the base without any resistance
@@williamfraser the entire point of tesla was harmonic interactions can build to unusual levels that can be exploited for benefits. So u would say if you could find a harmonic reverberation between two coils like these. You could use them in many other ways. Such as a way to keep them both charged and firing without interaction.
I would like to use something like this, to power a light in a walking cane (easier to see in low light conditions). The trick is: how to recharge it. A small dynamo, similar to a "spiral plunger spinning top" could create a small current every time I touch the walking cane to the ground. The trick is: how far must the tip of the cane "give" - in order to get enough spin - to charge the circuit?
@@KingJellyfishII when you take a step and push down on the cane, you get about half a second of dynamo charging. Depending on the person, it may be several seconds before another movement of the cane provides a charge. During that time, a constant voltage is needed- or the LED will get dim.
@@KingJellyfishII for any aide for the infirm or disabled, durability and reliability are what you want. Just having a dynamo in a walking cane is already pretty comp,ex, thank you
I haven't measured the current during operation but a dynamo could work. It will all depend on the stroke of the plunger and the gear ratio. A longer stroke and high gear ratio will generate more energy but it will also require more effort to press it down.
I like it, very clever using the leads of the cap for the L1. Though I think technically this would mean that your L1 is actually two roughly one half turn coils. Not that it really matters. I vaguely remember that mosfets are very sensitive to changes in capacitance so if you could find a smalll mosfet to replace your transistor you might be able to turn it on simply by touching a small wire connected to the gate.
Yes the 2N7000 does exactly that, it starts by simply touching the secondary with a finger. I haven't tried it with the smaller coil but it works as a direct replacement for the bjt on the breadboard (the pinout is compatible). Output (neon tube brightness) is less than bjt. It works well with an LED between gate and ground and another between gate an positive to act as clamps on the gate voltage swing. It is self starting with the pair of LEDs.
The frequency and voltages are out of my multimeter's range, I think. I tried making a capacitor-diode-coil "receiver" to measure rectified induced voltage on the loose coil. Max I ever saw was 75V with the two coils almost touching. Turns ratio was 5:8.
The tube was a fraction too big to fit in the coil but by attaching either end of the secondary to the heater coil seemed to pull the light to that end.
@@williamfraser So, arrange both ends as a center-tapped coil, to be alternately strummed? You could probably wrap the main coil directly onto the tube, for a somewhat more transparent and compact design. The cost may be the magnetic interaction with the plasma, which opens more options, and reveals more limitations. Certainly worth tinkering with though.
Great Video! I can recommend using a transistor such as the ZTX690 for this as it has better properties than the common 3904 or 2222 transistors Thanks for posting!
@@acmefixer1 basically any transistor with a decent amount of gain will work. The ZTX line of transistors requires very little base drive. In fact, if I remember correctly it oscillates down to about 0.2 or 0.1 Volt... If only my memory worked as well!! 🤔😂
@@gertbenade3082 Germanium transistors can oscillate down to 0.2 or 0.1 volt, but not silicon BJTs - they can't get below 0.5 volt. But the supply voltage is 8 volts or so. So to get enough power the transistor needs to handle several watts of power and thats why I said the BD433 would do it, but so would a 2N3055.
@@gertbenade3082 Wow, Zetex makes some great transistors! The datasheet surprised me just how good its attributes are. You're right, the VBE runs as low as 125mV at 175ºC thanks to its 200ºC max operating temperature, and the hfe can be as large as 1300 bordering a darlington. The main demerit to that one seems to be its toff times are a very sizeable 1300 ns, but the output capacitance is very low at 16pF. Might honestly not be an issue if it's small signal behavior that dominates here in the slayer. I did a bit of browsing and the ZTX series netted a bunch of other options. My favorite for this application would definitely be the ZTX1051A. While it has double the output capacitance, it more than makes up for it with 10A pulse current (from 6) and 300ns turn off times. Moreover, the transition frequency is slightly improved at 155 MHz (higher hfe at 10MHz) and Vce sat is as low as 25mV. With the knee of the IV curve being much further over, it allows 1/4 the Vce and power dissipation at 2A compared to the ZTE690. I think you found my newest favorite high performance through-hole transistor.
@@acmefixer1 If the BJT is self-heated or externally heated so that its temperature is elevated, then the BJT will have lower than 0.5V Vbe. For gert's ZTX690, all that needs to be done is raise the junction temperature to 100ºC to break through to 0.4V Vbeon and 175ºC to break through to 0.2V Vbeon. This is only critical once the input voltage drops to 0.4V, so the application already naturally derates the transistor. The BD series is a really slow BJT class, hot garbage for small-signal operation. I bought a slayer kit that used a BD243C which is similar to Onsemi's BD433. It's more suitable for large-signal DC operation. In both the 433 and 243, the transition frequency is 3MHz. In the case of my slayer, the resonant frequency was 3.7MHz, so the hfe gain ended up being below unity at around 0.6. Had the coil been a lower inductance reaching higher resonances of 7-10MHz, the gain would be 0. The great thing about the ZTX690 is that you don't need heat sinking at all compared to the BD series, which makes perfect sense then to use a TO-92 package. At the frequencies and input voltages we're using here, it's better than MOSFETs too.
I love this kind of information. How does one become an apprentice to a scientist? My mind has the creative capacity to throw ideas together, but not the technical know how.
Replicate simple circuits to develop an understanding of how specific components work. Using a breadboard allows you to test "what-if" ideas in rapid succession. Every small change is an opportunity to learn, why it worked or didn't work. Circuits using a 555 timer chip is a fantastic place to start because they often form a crucial part of more complex circuits with real practical applications.
I would imagine so. Thin wire, higher resistance, less energy dumped every time the transistor switches on. But there could be all kinds of secondary effects to complicate things.
The first time I built a slayer exciter and tested it with a flourescent tube, the tube died shortly afterwords (during normal operation). Has anyone else found that?
Look for tutorials on basic electronics, then learn about more specific components and how they are used in various applications. Get a breadboard and a variety of components and just start building and experimenting.
Oh lol, why? Usually for the tiny coils the relay drivers are used as an off-the-shelf H-bridge, you can even go the DRSSTC way with those. No spark is boring ;)
I do magic downtown around night clubs... This is giving me ideas... I'll make a video of me using it in a trick then come back here and post the link to the video... BTW, I'm an inventor and I love The Great Nikola Tesla...he was truly one of the greats
If you make the standard slayer large enough it will light up the neon tube from quite a distance, perhaps even through thin table top. A TIP31C transistor with a heatsink will allow higher voltages. I would suggest a breadboard circuit that allows easy replacement of the transistor, it tends to be the component that fails at the most inconvenient time. Keep spares on hand. And good luck!
Did you know that lightning strikes in the neighborhood will light up your fluorescent bulbs that are not plugged in to the ceiling. Just one or two in your hand during a thunderstorm and watch the fun begin‼️
Oh wow. It works on LT Spice. The 2.7V is even precise. I can't imagine it lighting a fluorescent light bulb though, and I am not willing to put the circuitry together and see. It's the 3rd Tesla Coil demo I tried by using LT Spice to simulate the results. The first two had some misinformation problems. Or I had problems with getting them to finally function on LT Spice because I am not willing to do the hands-on work. ruclips.net/video/P1xYNbgiB0g/видео.html
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
Using the transistor’s leads as the primary coil is genius, love it
The problem is that the primary winding's inductance is so low that the circuit oscillates in the HFs - 10MHz or more. From tests I've made the frequency is very poorly determined and it's more like a spark gap jamming Device. Fortunately it's low power.
The exciter I built used a BD433 transistor and a power supply voltage of 8 volts and about 200 mA current. The arc will burn a tiny pinhole in the skin of my finger. 😮
@@acmefixer1 maybe if there was a ferrite choke that would help with the 'jamming' and move the oscillation into a lower frequency?
Me and my monkey
👍🇬🇧
😱 omg.. I would of "NEVER" thought of that.. awesome 👍😊
I like how you used the caps leads as the primary coil. As well as the transistor leads giving it a hug. Clever!!
What a neat device! A speaker voice coil could be perfect as a secondary, will try this for my germicidal UVC lamp that has a failed driver circuit.
Is the voice coil a single layer of windings? AFAIK all Tesla coils use single layers. The voltage gradient along the coil is very steep and I believe there is a risk of insulation breakdown if a second layer of turns is added, effectively laying down high voltage turns directly onto low voltage turns.
@@williamfraserOn a larger scale, you're still using three components with a power transistor and a chunky HV capacitor, and you don't even need insulated wire, you can separate layers with graphene or nashua duct tape (just stretch the rubber to peel it off the metal first lol. Your circuit lights all fluorescent tubes in the room and reverberates for twenty-plus minutes using copper tubing for the primary and scrap HV city wire separated by nashua with the windings spaced as closely as possible without closing the circuit through the air. Portable harmonic oscillator has many applications. Most of them are kind of nefarious, but your circuit is quite the feat. You earned a subscriber with alerts turned on with this one. 😅
A little battery powered clock. They have a great coil in them for this stuff.
The piezo ignition is funny because some years ago a buddy told me to do that, but he said "use a lighter". So I ended up using something like an enclosed phototransistor on the base with only a pinhole for light to travel to it, and using an actual flint ignited lighter to spark enough light in front of the hole to turn the transistor on. Meanwhile I could have just grabbed a grill lighter haha.
Instructions unclear, used fire to start pulse generator.
@@zeekjones1 The days when the 100th Slayer Exciter build started getting boring without some kind of twist, but was still too scared and unskilled to journey into different circuits.
I’m just getting into electronics(started this year) but he explained well. the concepts presented clicked with my current understanding and knowledge. Now I have more interesting things to look into.
Good work.
I too am new. Started in around 2018. But my god I wish I was showing basic when I was a kid.. I would have made a carrier out this.. 👍🇮🇪🙏
Using the piezo-electric firestarter reminded me that I had a odd "remote controlled" robot dinosaur as a child that used a piezo-electric trigger remote to signal the dinosaur to perform an action. This would have been all the way back in the in the 1980's, but it was one of those clever Japanese toys, and I hadn't thought about it until watching your video.
Using oscilloscope probe with ground lead just clamped to tip creates 1 single turn pickup and can be used to watch the oscillations... A cheap 1Gsps scope with 30+ MHz bandwidth is enough.
Not sure why, but this video finally made me understand how this whole thing works.
Interesting investigation of circuit limits!
I love the use of a florescent tube for testing. Also a Tesla invention.
Thank you for sharing this circuit with us. Love it.
Great creation, very small part count and physical size due to the simplicity and monolithic-esque design. As you say, the fluorescent bulb going out doesn't mean the circuit shut down. The field was just too weak to sustain ionization. Assuming the load characteristics don't change too much, perhaps if the open wire were connected to the filament wire that reaches inside the bulb, the weakened field would radiate a bit more proximately to the gas for ionization, allowing it to stay luminous through lower input voltages. Further, heating the body of the NPN as much as possible (ideally to its maximum operating junction temperature) would decrease the base-emitter turn-on voltage by a few hundred millivolts and further increase forward current gain. A PTC resistor epoxied and insulated with the transistor, or even a source of (non burning) waste heat would do. JFETS would also be a great alternative to BJTs to allow even lower voltages.
I've built a couple joule thieves and one 12V slayer circuit before, but haven't seen the supercap used with them. It's a nice low impedance voltage source for the coil. Though, I wonder what its high frequency impedance looks like compared to ceramics. I would guess the performance suffers without a few low capacitance ceramics in parallel.
Tried underdriving an unmodified slayer with a BD243C BJT, red LED, 1.2kOhm resistor, and 200nF of ceramic capacitance. Got down to 2.08V before the PL-S fluorescent tube extinguished and the circuit failed to relight with a piezo striker. The circuit further oscillates down to 1.4V without ionizing anything.
Preheating at full power to a case temperature of 135ºC and then underdriving did NOT produce the results I expected (lower minimum input voltage operation). The circuit would extinguish at 2.5V and would not relight with emfs below that.
Reducing case temperature to -18ºC, however, did allow me to reduce input voltage further to 2.03V with a base-emitter peak voltage of 1.08V and DC current of 140mA. So while higher temps _should_ offer higher gain and lower base-emitter voltage drop (as much as 200mV), this high power BJT performed better with even lower gain and higher Vbe. Actually, rather than these parameters being relevant, I noticed its transition frequency is 3MHz yet the circuit it was designed for exceeds it at 3.6Mhz. This means gain is affirmatively below unity (1) at my frequency, fractional even. By comparison, the 2N3904 has a transition frequency of 300MHz, so there wouldn't be significant attenuation of gain due to frequency and it may still benefit from some thermally driven tweaks to its properties before needing to change transistor technologies.
The ceramic cap definitely makes a difference, at least when there is a resistor on the base. Another place where I tried two parallel but opposite facing LED's is between the positive terminal of the supercap and the resistor. Both LED's lit up so I assume the primary also creates a reverse pulse, perhaps induced by the secondary, that stores some energy in the ceramic cap before the new cycle starts. Just guessing here, if you have a scope you can test it!
I also had success with a 2N7000 mosfet with nothing but the secondary on the gate. It was an easy substitute on the breadboard because the equivalent pinout is the same order as the 3904. Adding a gate pull-up resistor just resulted in overheating and no pulsing. Adding a pull down resistor worked well, even without a pull-up. The circuit can be started by simply touching the tip of the secondary, no emp required. What worked best was using an led between ground and gate and another between gate an positive (cathode goes to positive). Both light up strongly so the secondary reverse pulse must be pushing the gate well above positive. The LED's should also provide protection for the gate against Vgs limits.
@@williamfraser I'll find some time to do that, but rather than modify my slayer kit which is rather inconvenient to partake, I'll repeat the same breadboard layout you have and wind a new coil so we have similar attributes. Was there any reason for the 80T and diameter? Going for a specific coil inductance, ratio, time constant, or something else?
@@InfinionExperiments I made the 28mm coil years ago, I don't recall why I decided on such a low turn count, it would not have been based on any electronic property, more likely just to explore the limits of what might work. Small coils with high length to diameter ratios all seemed to require ferrite cores to work well while the short wide coils work well without ferrite.
@@williamfraser🤔 could you use this and step up the power and voltage with 2-car generators that diodes being used as the three leads on a AC generator. Run a distribution panel and about 90 amps and 120?
the trick with the lighter is super clever! how did you think of that?
Trial and error! I have seen several topics on piezo crystals used in gimmick emp devices. Some other methods of induction also worked, all involving sparks, like shorting a large capacitor next to the coil. The lighter was just far more convenient.
The "trick with the lighter" would not be needed if the base bias resistor was not removed. The resistor is so inexpensive that it should not have been removed. 😮 🤨
@@acmefixer1 and how would it still be 3 components?
@@cornishcat11
Transistors are current operated devices; therefore the base should **always** have base bias current, no matter how small. The base bias could be as low as a microamp, through a 10 megohm resistor.
You said it's "only 3 components" but it's *not!* The fourth component is the lighter - without it, the circuit won't start! 😈😳
@@acmefixer1 So you think a 'Start Cart' is a component of a jet fighter?
This is actually pretty incredible I'd be very interested in a load test to see how many lights or how long a light can be on. I'd also be very interested in knowing more ways it could be powered even if they are less effective than the lighter.
touching the lead probably would also trigger it especially if you are inside a building, or if you also touch the + wire. connecting the gound to the earth and then letting a kite with a rope wet in salt watter fly up and either getting close enough to it, or making it touch the middle terminal should also trigger it, if the kite is high enough and if the salt water is of the right concentration then you might not need to ground it.
The spark from the lighter simply induces the first pulse to trigger the transistor (if that is the correct term). The power for the oscillation comes from the supercap which acts as a low capacity rechargeable battery with low ESR. It still needs recharging from an external source.
OK so the Super capacitor is already charged up prior to the Spark Igniter ? This video looks extremely suspect to me.@@williamfraser
@@seditt5146 yes already charged. No free energy bs
in place of resistor you can put a small capacitor and at the right value capacitance, when you power on the circuit the cap allows just enough current thru to switch the transistor and get the circuit oscillating.
I gave it a try, used various ceramic caps from 10nF and up to 220uF. It would not start, even when using the emp. When I added a 10k resistor in series it started (using the base-emitter LED as an indicator). A diode or LED in series it also worked (anode to positive). To start a second time the cap first had to be discharged.
I love small circuits like this, I wonder if placing the cap inside the secondary coil would affect its performance, but I'm sure it'll look even more cute
That was my initial intention, making it even more compact. It didn't work for me but there must be a way. A ferrite sleeve around the cap to provide some magnetic shielding perhaps, or simply adding proper insulation around the top of the cap housing.
Unlikely to work. The aluminum can of the capacitor acts like a shorted winding and robs power from the circuit.
lacing the cap inside the coil produces too much parasitic capacitance and reduces the Q of the coil.
This was super-captivating... Nice work!
Try that with the push button piezo from a gas grill.
All it needs is a wire antenna about 1 inch to broadcast the pulse.
Excellent fractional energy driver research.
For the dummies here, what is it used for in practice? Does it start and maintain ionization in fluorescent bulbs, or is that just used to illustrate the field and there are other uses?
At this small scale, probably nothing more than an educational circuit or a party-trick gadget. The neon tube is just to show the field and gauge its output power. I have not heard of it being used in fluorescent lighting as such. According to Wikipedia (see "Tesla Coil") modern applications are in arc welding and for leak detection in vacuum vessels (the coil needs enough power to create a coronal discharge, the arcs are drawn to any tiny hole in the vessel, making it possible to visually identify it.)
Tesla coils are a technology developed by Nikola Tesla in his intellectual pursuit of abundance of energy from the natural world such as self-acting engines, transmitters and collectors of atmospheric electricity, as well as functional wireless power for the 19th and 20th century industrialists developing infrastructure for New York and other cities in the Americas. Today we have had the means to popularize some of the patents, essays, and ideas for tesla but not so much the big picture of its functional purpose. Yeah there practical applications for this specific device for education and testing, but there is a deeper problem or challenge to overcome that was left by the man.
Awesome made video. You are a professional. Good cutting. Good explanations. Just the informations I need to understand it and no Bla Bla. Perfect. 🙏
Fantastic project! I have just made one to myself, just had to :) It can be very cool gadget
Try to see if you can broadcast energy from one coil and charge the capacitor on an other coil. Or one coil can start other coil resonanting.
ShOcK & AWE simplicity... ELECTRONICS: "The gift that keeps on giving..". Thank you for the video.
Thanks! I do love simplicity!
Could try the ZTX 653 audio driver transistor. A reason given is it's higher breakdown voltage rating. The forward gain is however lower than the 2N2222A.
What are some practical applications here? e.g. extremely high speed switch?
This is my first foray into high frequency so right now it is just an intriguing educational gadget.
What about pulling voltage out of the air provided it's enough to light a tube? Start it with a power source, lights the tube and it runs down to a point that the voltage pulled out of the air sustains the illumination indefinitely. Might need a really large antenna to get enough power for sustainment. The power would be from either static or other EMF sources such as power wires or transmitters.
That would be a neat achievement.
@@williamfraser i thought thats what a tesla coil was
Tesla pulled electricity out the sky, every 1 metre you go up from the ground the voltage goes up 100 volts, you would only need to go 2.4metres to get 240 volts.
Made a voltaic pile using 16 logs, a carbon steel screw in one end each log, a piece of copper wire in the centre of each log, and a piece of copper wire connecting the screw of one log to the copper wire of the next until all logs were connected in series. Managed to get 12.34 volts out the end and it powered an LED continuously- forever if the logs never dried out (if i used a growing tree rather than a chopped up one)
could put a starting cap of 0.1uf or less from v+ to base. would do the same as resistor but in a burst. however, you may need a series diode to prevent it from becoming resonator.
I'll have to try, sounds like it might work.
Got working just as you suggested. A series 10k resistor also worked instead of the diode. The cap had to be discharged first before I can start it a second time.
@William Fraser using the smallest capacitor possible, may help with auto start as it may drain by air resistance.
beautiful simplicity! Bravo!
I love to run lights from Batteries or my Tesla coil as it pokes one in the eye of the energy cartel. Hahaha.
How to select diameter of pipe fir tesla what diameter u have used in your tesla coil at 1:08
28mm
Fantastic part optimization.
That was brilliant. i will make the same very soon . well done
That was beautiful. Thank you!
"Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave! With scrap!"
Awesome 😁 Quick Question...
Would this be "triggered" by a weaponized style EMP?
Also, would this be triggered by a "concerning sized" coronal mass ejection, and if not could it be "tuned" to do so?
I suppose it depends on the flux density at the coil. If the source is too far away it simply would not induce enough current to trigger the transistor. A frequency close to the resonant frequency will probably work better.
Yes it could do that, all it needs is a pulse strong enough to make the transistor turn on.
Wouldn't an EMP weapon simply burn out the transistor?
Well, with EMP close enough, the coil wire will likely burn through. Or induce enough current to fry the transistor.
@@ZomB1986 After thousands of Amps flow through the ex-coil, yes.
Did you connect the secondary coil to the base of the transistor at 3:47? Why?
Yes, the induced alternating current in the secondary coil is used to switch the transistor on and off.
If you know ANYTHING about TELAS. You know the Capacitor and inductor has to be in Resonance. C1uF to L1uH makes it like a spring. P.s. there NEEDS to be a ground
The "ground" here is free air
@@ZomB1986 when he touches the 1 wire HE becomes ground. there is no ground. the FREE air as in the atmosphere is a capacitor. That is what lighting happens witch is a short. So your saying you are grounding in the middle of a capacitor?
You could have hidden resistor somewhere in there + still used ceramic cap, since supercaps tend to have kind of higher ESL.
Very inspiring! Thanks for sharing
have you tried that on a dead florescent light bulb it works as long as you have high voltage you have light
Indeed, some of my large old workshop lights still light up even with a small coil.
Sir please make a video on basic electronics and its circuits so that we can understand and make our own desired circuis, its my humble request
Do not eliminate the shunt diode across the BE junction of the transistor! Doing so subjects the BE junction to reverse breakdown. The diode should be a high-speed diode.
That was an awesome and very accessible video, thank hou
Currently you are forcing negative current from the base, which can degrade a transistor's Hfe. It's hard to predict the base current especially if you consider ESD. The positive base current could also in theory be excessive. In order to keep oscillating, the coil must be able to supply not only the minimum required base drive current, but also the base charge required at a given frequency. So basically for lowest input voltage you want to match the effective coil secondary impedance with the transistor input impedance at low battery voltage. This may not give the best performance at full charge.
Interesting. I was wondering about the effect of high frequency on the transistor and, in the Slayer circuit, the LED. I believe the LED is supposed to clamp the negative voltage on the base, but is that still the case at >10MHz? And does the transistor still behave the same as at low frequency? The mere fact that a single turn primary works has me wondering how the various loops in the slayer circuit (e.g. the loop from the base to the collector via the resistor, or the loop containing the LED and base-emitter diode) are affected by being so close to the secondary coil's EM fields.
@@williamfraser I was going off your prototype which doesn't have any LEDs. A E-B LED will clamp the reverse base voltage to the LED forward voltage and protect the base from that kind of degradation (but may also reduce performance). This is very speculative on my part and I haven't really seen any hard data on what it takes to degrade a BJT base, but seeing how the load current must all go through the NPN base triggers my best practice instincts. A 2N3904 base is probably very robust, unlike something like a MPSA18 which has a lot of intrinsic base resistance and a very thin base (and probably wouldn't work with this circuit anyway). The main danger to me is an arc or sudden discharge because the coil capacitance discharging through an arc could generate extremely high momentary currents, which is the reason ESD kills semiconductors. But thinking about this again, if we look at the human discharge model of ESD, this tiny coil wouldn't have nearly the amount of charge that a human can. So maybe it is perfectly fine. Another possibility is because electrons emit while holes don't, if the circuit is floating it could develop a strong charge itself which could discharge upon contact with something. At any rate, if I were worried about it I would leave it running on a wall wart indefinitely and see if it degrades. That may be the only real way to satisfactorily answer the question.
@@williamfraser At just 7MHz I measured 7-12V pk-pk across a 3mm LED with a min of over -5V and max over 6V. The reality is these LEDs are extremely slow, even though they do light up, its a false indication that they are clamping. Through-hole LEDs have long wire leads, and then they have long bonding wires connecting the leads to the PN inside the optical reflector, meaning they will have high parasitic and junction capacitance (could slow down rise and fall time of the transistor). If you wanted to improve performance while keeping the visual effect, replacing the package with an SMD LED would be an improvement, something that is as small as possible being the best choice. Red LEDs are a good choice because of the low forward voltage, but amber or infrared would transition faster.
A better option is signal diodes, better yet is zener diodes, but the best option is TVS diodes. A TVS diode can offer unidirectional and bidirectional clamping, and packages are designed to minimize parasitic inductance and capacitance by using packages that don't use any bonding wires (i.e DFN, BGA), and it gets as low as femtofarads. Lastly, they handle huge pulse power and you can select the exact working voltage, breakdown, and clamping voltages along the knee of the diode.
If you still wanted LED indication, you could connect a sense resistor in series and use a comparator, logic IC (buffer amplifier, logic gates, translators), a current monitor, or any small signal conditioning IC or discrete component to do the indicating.
Use a am radio to see if it's still oscillating ...
Sounds like you made an electronic pendulum or metronome, which just happens to use a tesla-coil-like design.
Isn't that exactly what a Tesla coil is, a resonating tank circuit between the coil and the parasitic capacitance of the air around it?
@@williamfraser I think he meant like where you give it an initial "charge" and then "release" it and then it oscillates till it "settles down".
Great idea!!! Nicely executed!!
Question: Does it need to be a 2N3904 transistor? 2N2222 has the same pinouts, and similar datasheets.
A 2N2222 works just fine.
@@williamfraser Great! I'll start working on this project today!
So the primary circuit runs at the self-resonant frequency of the secondary? Are you sure? Did you show that?
Greetings from ChCh, New Zealand ..... Very Clever indeed .... Loved the 'Progress' to get to this Super Simple circuit .... I might be mistaken .... Groot Groete 'Japie' :-) :-) :-)
Lekker!
Did you measure the HFE of the transistor? I am interested in what the gain is. Also you state supercapacitor but can you give us the source? I would like to recreate this but with a slight variance and I have an interesting idea.
I don't know the HFE in operation, or how to measure it. The very proximity of test leads seem to alter the circuit's output (neon tube brightness). The supercap is a run of the mill 10F Kamcap I bought from Mantech.co.za.
don't need to measure it, it's well documented in the 2n3904 datasheet. hfe is 35 at 10MHz
Why does the 100nf cap improve performance?
As I understand it, the cap assists the battery in supplying the high current demand when the transistor is on. This is most noticeable when using NiCad batteries with high internal resistance.
@@williamfraser Thank you! I've built a number of these, and it's so much fun to find ways to eek out just a little more for a little less power!!!!
Interesting. It could be useful for emergency lighting and other things
excellent idea friend, you can improve the circuit, removing the leds that you have at the base of the collector and putting those leds in the emitter and their outputs connect one to the positive and the other to the negative of the capacitor so that the capacitor is charging all the time , and reconnect the line that you removed from the base without any resistance
what happens if you put two of those together? will they reverberate between each other?
There is definitely some interaction. I was able to "switch on" the small coil by bringing the larger coil closer.
@@williamfraser the entire point of tesla was harmonic interactions can build to unusual levels that can be exploited for benefits. So u would say if you could find a harmonic reverberation between two coils like these. You could use them in many other ways. Such as a way to keep them both charged and firing without interaction.
Really cool, thanks for video
can i block frequencies with it
👀😶
Kinda reminds me of a joule thief circuit.
I would like to use something like this, to power a light in a walking cane (easier to see in low light conditions). The trick is: how to recharge it.
A small dynamo, similar to a "spiral plunger spinning top" could create a small current every time I touch the walking cane to the ground.
The trick is: how far must the tip of the cane "give" - in order to get enough spin - to charge the circuit?
This doesn't seem like the most efficient way to produce light. Why not connect the supercap directly to an LED instead?
@@KingJellyfishII when you take a step and push down on the cane, you get about half a second of dynamo charging. Depending on the person, it may be several seconds before another movement of the cane provides a charge. During that time, a constant voltage is needed- or the LED will get dim.
@@Soupie62 what about a boost converter circuit? they're over 90% efficient, but they are quite a bit more complex.
@@KingJellyfishII for any aide for the infirm or disabled, durability and reliability are what you want. Just having a dynamo in a walking cane is already pretty comp,ex, thank you
I haven't measured the current during operation but a dynamo could work. It will all depend on the stroke of the plunger and the gear ratio. A longer stroke and high gear ratio will generate more energy but it will also require more effort to press it down.
I like it, very clever using the leads of the cap for the L1. Though I think technically this would mean that your L1 is actually two roughly one half turn coils. Not that it really matters. I vaguely remember that mosfets are very sensitive to changes in capacitance so if you could find a smalll mosfet to replace your transistor you might be able to turn it on simply by touching a small wire connected to the gate.
Yes the 2N7000 does exactly that, it starts by simply touching the secondary with a finger. I haven't tried it with the smaller coil but it works as a direct replacement for the bjt on the breadboard (the pinout is compatible). Output (neon tube brightness) is less than bjt. It works well with an LED between gate and ground and another between gate an positive to act as clamps on the gate voltage swing. It is self starting with the pair of LEDs.
Great video.
It's mega cooool demonstration! )
@williamfraser , did measure output voltage? Can you please measure it, at least approximately?
The frequency and voltages are out of my multimeter's range, I think. I tried making a capacitor-diode-coil "receiver" to measure rectified induced voltage on the loose coil. Max I ever saw was 75V with the two coils almost touching. Turns ratio was 5:8.
@@williamfraser , Thanks for the measurements! It's really interesting, I love such experiments )
Use the florescent tube's heater coil as part of the circuit, and put the main coil over the tube. This may give you light farther into the discharge.
The tube was a fraction too big to fit in the coil but by attaching either end of the secondary to the heater coil seemed to pull the light to that end.
@@williamfraser So, arrange both ends as a center-tapped coil, to be alternately strummed? You could probably wrap the main coil directly onto the tube, for a somewhat more transparent and compact design. The cost may be the magnetic interaction with the plasma, which opens more options, and reveals more limitations. Certainly worth tinkering with though.
Great Video!
I can recommend using a transistor such as the ZTX690 for this as it has better properties than the common 3904 or 2222 transistors
Thanks for posting!
I used a BD433 transistor. But most experimenters just use a 2N3055. It works well with the power transistor from an old AT power supply.
@@acmefixer1 basically any transistor with a decent amount of gain will work. The ZTX line of transistors requires very little base drive. In fact, if I remember correctly it oscillates down to about 0.2 or 0.1 Volt... If only my memory worked as well!! 🤔😂
@@gertbenade3082
Germanium transistors can oscillate down to 0.2 or 0.1 volt, but not silicon BJTs - they can't get below 0.5 volt. But the supply voltage is 8 volts or so. So to get enough power the transistor needs to handle several watts of power and thats why I said the BD433 would do it, but so would a 2N3055.
@@gertbenade3082 Wow, Zetex makes some great transistors! The datasheet surprised me just how good its attributes are. You're right, the VBE runs as low as 125mV at 175ºC thanks to its 200ºC max operating temperature, and the hfe can be as large as 1300 bordering a darlington. The main demerit to that one seems to be its toff times are a very sizeable 1300 ns, but the output capacitance is very low at 16pF. Might honestly not be an issue if it's small signal behavior that dominates here in the slayer. I did a bit of browsing and the ZTX series netted a bunch of other options. My favorite for this application would definitely be the ZTX1051A. While it has double the output capacitance, it more than makes up for it with 10A pulse current (from 6) and 300ns turn off times. Moreover, the transition frequency is slightly improved at 155 MHz (higher hfe at 10MHz) and Vce sat is as low as 25mV. With the knee of the IV curve being much further over, it allows 1/4 the Vce and power dissipation at 2A compared to the ZTE690.
I think you found my newest favorite high performance through-hole transistor.
@@acmefixer1 If the BJT is self-heated or externally heated so that its temperature is elevated, then the BJT will have lower than 0.5V Vbe.
For gert's ZTX690, all that needs to be done is raise the junction temperature to 100ºC to break through to 0.4V Vbeon and 175ºC to break through to 0.2V Vbeon. This is only critical once the input voltage drops to 0.4V, so the application already naturally derates the transistor.
The BD series is a really slow BJT class, hot garbage for small-signal operation. I bought a slayer kit that used a BD243C which is similar to Onsemi's BD433. It's more suitable for large-signal DC operation. In both the 433 and 243, the transition frequency is 3MHz. In the case of my slayer, the resonant frequency was 3.7MHz, so the hfe gain ended up being below unity at around 0.6. Had the coil been a lower inductance reaching higher resonances of 7-10MHz, the gain would be 0.
The great thing about the ZTX690 is that you don't need heat sinking at all compared to the BD series, which makes perfect sense then to use a TO-92 package. At the frequencies and input voltages we're using here, it's better than MOSFETs too.
Smart ass love your work🤓👍
I love this kind of information. How does one become an apprentice to a scientist? My mind has the creative capacity to throw ideas together, but not the technical know how.
Replicate simple circuits to develop an understanding of how specific components work. Using a breadboard allows you to test "what-if" ideas in rapid succession. Every small change is an opportunity to learn, why it worked or didn't work. Circuits using a 555 timer chip is a fantastic place to start because they often form a crucial part of more complex circuits with real practical applications.
Some amazing stuff going on with this circuit.. 👍🇮🇪🙏
Bro's voice so deep, he's about to enter the batcave.
Where do you think the video was filmed..
God bless you for helping people going though hard times ❤
Well done!
Would is run longer if you changed to a thinner primary loop?
I would imagine so. Thin wire, higher resistance, less energy dumped every time the transistor switches on. But there could be all kinds of secondary effects to complicate things.
Cool circuit and nice video!
does your testla coil detec ghosts ?
Why don't you test it and let's know!? 😂
Wow, thats interesting. Thank you
Could you build an oscillator for a metal called nitinol and create a flying insect with it
Next time I get hold of some nitinol I'll definitely try!
The first time I built a slayer exciter and tested it with a flourescent tube, the tube died shortly afterwords (during normal operation). Has anyone else found that?
Just started looking at this stuff, where would you suggest getting started learning and understanding this.
Look for tutorials on basic electronics, then learn about more specific components and how they are used in various applications. Get a breadboard and a variety of components and just start building and experimenting.
Fellow South African? Pretty clever circuit
Oh lol, why? Usually for the tiny coils the relay drivers are used as an off-the-shelf H-bridge, you can even go the DRSSTC way with those. No spark is boring ;)
Nice video shot, thanks for sharing it :)
how many components do you need to rebuild this as a radio? maybe a dumb question but its still interesting to me. you guys are magicians!
This question is far from dumb. This oscillator circuit can and has been tuned and used as a dedicated RF transmitter (aka "bug")
I noticed that the frequency can be adjusted by moving the position of the primary so if possible it should at least be tunable.
I do magic downtown around night clubs...
This is giving me ideas...
I'll make a video of me using it in a trick then come back here and post the link to the video...
BTW, I'm an inventor and I love The Great Nikola Tesla...he was truly one of the greats
If you make the standard slayer large enough it will light up the neon tube from quite a distance, perhaps even through thin table top. A TIP31C transistor with a heatsink will allow higher voltages. I would suggest a breadboard circuit that allows easy replacement of the transistor, it tends to be the component that fails at the most inconvenient time. Keep spares on hand. And good luck!
F🔥re St🔥rter! Genius!
lol, are those nicotine lozenge tubes for enclosure? Perfect size for 18650s, too!
Great experiment
My inner nerd needs to try this! time to take apart my old dvd player!
Can't we use any NPN transistor?
Nice. Thanks for sharing.
Why mine not working?stupid transistor staggered me alot
Did you know that lightning strikes in the neighborhood will light up your fluorescent bulbs that are not plugged in to the ceiling. Just one or two in your hand during a thunderstorm and watch the fun begin‼️
Maybe because of the rapidly changing magnetic field... but idk
Ima go grab some light bulbs there should be some lightning today
Thank.s
Good luck.
Love it great video
very ingenious!
Очень интересный Спектор речи !!
Ведущий час джаза США
Конновер имел супер Спектор голоса
198х 1990 !
Just genius!
Cool stuff!
Is there a way to do this project using a bc547 transistor?
Most npn transistors should work with the standard Slayer-type circuit. The simplified circuit is finicky so results may vary.
@@williamfraser Thank you very much for the answer ☺️🙏
Does this upscale?
The original Slayer exciter certainly does, there are thousands of videos of coils over a foot long with impressive plasma discharge.
@@williamfraser thanks for sharing this. It's awesome.
Pure wizardry..
Oh wow. It works on LT Spice. The 2.7V is even precise. I can't imagine it lighting a fluorescent light bulb though, and I am not willing to put the circuitry together and see. It's the 3rd Tesla Coil demo I tried by using LT Spice to simulate the results. The first two had some misinformation problems. Or I had problems with getting them to finally function on LT Spice because I am not willing to do the hands-on work.
ruclips.net/video/P1xYNbgiB0g/видео.html
the foundation of youth is in the Air.