Plasma with Graphite Electrode

We used pencil graphite from a mechanical pencil and 2-4Kv to make plasma in open air.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Plasma
• Awesome
• lightening
• Pruss
• Graphite
• Ball
• Necrovex7
• Fire
• Cool
• electricity
• arc
• welding
• melting

[salahedu]

plz can you tell why do you graphite and not copper or iron electrodes??

[Necrovex7]

@salahedu Basically graphite is both conducting and flammable which makes for a good show but it doesn't really last long :P. Also the graphite we used was from a mechanical pencil so it was cheap and easy to find. We tried other things but nothing has come close to how the graphite performs.

[Necrovex7]

oh, and one more thing -- the resulting jacob's ladder the arc does (the movement of the arc upward) gets about 9 inches tall when we did it so make sure you do it with enough head space if you are (that goes for anyone)

[juniortore]

what did you power that with, it was sweet

[Necrovex7]

we powered it with the transformer from a microwave (it runs about 4000v) and a capacitor from the same microwave to even the voltage output, its pretty dangerous during setup - so if you wanna try it make sure every thing is off, the electricity arced from the power cord to one of our arms ounce (yikes) its a pretty hefty shock considering it went through insulation. but all in all if your safe you'll be ok and have an awesome thing to look at. :)

[Necrovex7]

(the microwave was actually outputting about 2000v my bad :P

[Procrastinatathor]

Cool! So, when does the plasma rifle comes out?

[tannermann]

This mean you can make me a cannon :D

[JateGuitar]

cool

[Necrovex7]

Awesome, we turned it off so the plasma wouldnt get too high, i wonder what would happen???