Thick Electrical Spark

Testing out the transformer used in our hand-built high voltage power supply for our Farnsworth-Hirsh fusion reactor. We were experiencing some arcing issues earlier, so we wanted to test and see what kinds of input voltages would create unintended arcing. Everything worked out fine so we suspect it might be resonance with our stack multiplier. Check out our other videos to see what we're working with.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• fusion
• reactor
• electrical
• spark
• high
• voltage
• dangerous

[Calliber50]

Do you know how much current you had on either side?

[userjjb]

We weren't metering current draw, but the variac has a 5 amp fuse IIRC, and the transformer is around 280x step-up, so I'd estimate around 0.02 amp across the gap at it's highest before we tripped the fuse.

[xrayrep]

Are you running that Flyback on 60Hz power directly from the Variac? If so, I'm surprised that it doesn't smoke and burn up! TV Flyback transformers are designed to run at around 15KHz here in the U.S.

[userjjb]

jmartis2 is correct, it's a high voltage transformer that can put out upwards of 40 kV continuously

[tall32guy]

30 volts made that hot hissy spark? Wow! LOL

[aramchikful]

Keep em comming!!!!!!!!!

[bradmann85]

ive seen a spark with two colors with a v shape. when i was in 5th grade the power company came over to my school to show us the dangers of high voltage and powerlines can be. they used a hot stick to make contact with the grounded object such as a piece of a metal fence. the touch the stick to the fence and gotten this v shaped spark up to 2feet long. one branch of the v was red and the other side was blue. sorta like the the v the have for valvoline. nice though

[Calliber50]

.02 amps gets hot enough to melt the copper? That's pretty interesting. I wonder what in the world they would need a 280:1 transformer for. Looks like when the ends got glowing hot their resistance got so high that the arc moved away. I could spend days in that lab and I don't think I could get bored!

[Stamolka1986]

Oh my gosh! How did he do that? That was fantastic!

[xrayrep]

I just looked at it again very carefully, and yes it does look like it has a laminated iron core which operates at 60Hz. My mistake!

[xrayrep]

Sure, but does it operate directly from your Variac, or do you have some sort of solid state driver for it that gives it a high frequency voltage?