Plasma jar!

Essentially a glass bottle full of plasma. This works much like a plasma globe, where you have a container, made of clear glass, that you evacuate (pull a vacuum). In this video, i show the 'plasma jar' while it is being evacuated. I start out at atmospheric, and slowly lower it to my pump's ultimate vacuum with the HV HF AC power supply on. This way, you can see how the plasma acts as the pressure drops. I also do it again while the air is being let back in.

The HF HV AC source is an LOPT (flyback) that i purposely burnt the diodes out on, with too high current and voltage. to drive it, i use a 555 timer The 555 drives a totem pole of transistors, which drive an IRFP350 mosfet's gate.

The pump i am using is from eBay. It was made for an air conditioner unit, and it runs at 700 or so watts. I have it connected to the bottle with a ball valve for isolation, and a brass male to male barb shoved into a hole in the cork. All of this is connected with some plastic pipe (it caves in on itself after awhile under vacuum). I am not sure what the ultimate vacuum of this pump is. It is quite low, i suppose. The pump itself is a rotary pump, i believe. Uses an eccentric spherical 'piston', rotating inside of a circular cylinder. A single vane isolates input from output.

I have some 14 gauge solid copper wire going into the bottle through a very small hole in the cork. I soldered a metal ball on the end of it, to prevent getting breakout from sharp ends. This makes up one of the electrodes. On the bottom of the bottle, i have some aluminum tape. That is the second capacitively coupled electrode.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• high
• voltage
• sparks
• flyback
• lopt
• transformer
• 555
• plasma
• globe
• ozone
• corona
• arc
• oscillator
• mosfet
• vacuum
• pump
• compressor

[Kizmox]

audiomodulate it!

[erlendse]

It's cool.. I wonder what the next project will be :)

[jackston2001]

its not cool its boiling

[gilcomment]

Beautiful! May I ask you the amount of vacuum you've got and if you have fill it with any gas? Thanks!

[ahoop14]

Warning:do not try this at home; plasma is extremely hot.

[electicalfanatic]

@Kizmox yes he defenitally should. hhe could take a pair of headphones, cut them in half, and hook the negitive to a sepeerate ground, and have the positive switch a transistor with a seperate mosfet attached to flip you main power supply on and off. but he would the need to hsve a second power souce

[FlavoredCoffeeGuy]

Get a magnet

[Lokivoid]

@zker666

Thats not completely true, it depends on the gas and the level of vacuum. Some have alot more resistence then others in some cases produceing higher temps then air under normal atmospheric pressure. Some are the opposite even under normal atmospheric pressure such as argon.

[zker666]

Since vacuum plasma is much cooler than air plasma, put a piece of paper or something inside the jar in the path of the plasma and see your results!

[moneraths]

Fun stuff, isn't it bud?

[erlendse]

Try phosphor inside the jar.. it may actually work.