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Step 5Safety first!
When drawing arcs...
I strongly urge you to make a chicken stick, which is a 1 foot long minimum insulating stick of some sort. PVC pipe is very good for this. Some people use wood but when damp wood can become a conductor at high voltages.
You then tape an electrode of some sort onto the end of it, sharp pointed nails works well for low power drivers. You can then attach a wire of some sort to the chicken stick electrode the other end will be attached to the HV return pin on the flyback transformer.
Other safety concerns
Including the obvious risk of electric shock another thing to take note of is that the arc is VERY hot and can easily set to fire to anything that it touches. Even the cable insulation will burn if you draw the arc onto it.
So if you insist on burning pieces of paper or other objects take that into account and have some way of putting the fire out in the event it becomes big.
Disclaimer
I am no way responsible if you mess up with this circuit.
I strongly urge you to make a chicken stick, which is a 1 foot long minimum insulating stick of some sort. PVC pipe is very good for this. Some people use wood but when damp wood can become a conductor at high voltages.
You then tape an electrode of some sort onto the end of it, sharp pointed nails works well for low power drivers. You can then attach a wire of some sort to the chicken stick electrode the other end will be attached to the HV return pin on the flyback transformer.
Other safety concerns
Including the obvious risk of electric shock another thing to take note of is that the arc is VERY hot and can easily set to fire to anything that it touches. Even the cable insulation will burn if you draw the arc onto it.
So if you insist on burning pieces of paper or other objects take that into account and have some way of putting the fire out in the event it becomes big.
- You should never touch the high voltage wire or any of the flyback base pins when the circuit is turned on.
- Make sure that you can easily kill the power to the circuit.
- Do not use this circuit on an unsuitable surface such as a metal table or flammable surface.
- The transistor heat-sink can get hot so watch out not to burn your hand on it.
- Keep any high voltage cables away from other parts of the circuit and low voltage cables.
- Use common sense.
Disclaimer
I am no way responsible if you mess up with this circuit.
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This can kill you if you don't know what surfaces you can/can't touch.
Even if the equipment is off and unplugged the charge stored can be lethal for a very long time. It's a big capacitor.
This step is attempting to describe how to drain this charge so you can work safely. You must connect the high voltage to ground THROUGH a small resistance to avoid welding your probe to the terminal.
Use Ohm's law to calculate how long it will take the voltage to drain through your resistor and how high a wattage rating your resistor needs to be.
If any of this confuses you.
STOP!
This level of electronics is above your head.
Go back to the books to understand fully what you intend to do with electricity.
You do not need a resistor, this is not a capacitor bank and it will not "weld" bits of metal together.
Have you actually made this circuit? It outputs very little current on the high voltage side, below 1mA.
I have done this many times for fun.
The CRT's that one may be scavenging the flyback from certainly CAN hold a charge like a leyden jar.
Care needs to be taken on disassembly.
Why wouldn't you want to play it safe?
To discharge it just use the alligator clip and chicken stick method to discharge any capacitive charge left between the CRT internal and external aquadag coating.