Make your own Lightning Globe!

Step 2 Prep the screen

The screen is our grounding plane for the high voltage. It will be wrapped around as much of the light bulb as possible, without causing unintended arcs.

Trim the screen as needed. You should be able to fold the screen in half and still be able to fit the bulb inside tightly.

The screen I used was painted black, so I scraped off some paint with an Exacto knife. Since we need to attach a wire to it, pick a good spot on the edge of the screen - right in the center.

You'll need to scrape paint off of both sides of the screen and on both edges.

Then fold the screen in half, poke the stripped ground wire through both pieces, wrap it around the edge as tightly as you can get it, and then solder the ground wire to itself.

Since the screen is aluminum, you won't be able to solder the wire directly to it. That's why it's very important to tighten the ground wire around the screen. Use pliers if you have to.

Comments

[pjp15]

I am not sure where to connect the grounding wire on my monitor, where else could I ground it?  Would something like sticking it in a bucket of sand work?

[zombiefire]

i used an old charger which xould be plugged in to a voltage socket

[bobbydodo3]

could I put wire on it in only a few areas so the electricity only jumped to those areas? Great Instructable thanks

[The Lightning Stalker]

There is a way to solder directly to Aluminum. You can find aluminum brazing rod in some hardware stores. It's a special alloy that sticks to aluminum. Just make a blob on the aluminum and then regular solder will stick to the blob. Just don't use your soldering iron to apply the stuff. You'll ruin it.

[NK5]

Yes. In this case, the voltage is so high that the wire just needs to be close to it.

[DMiny]

NK5 can you tell me where you found the stripped ground wire

[The Lightning Stalker]

Just buy some 18-20AWG wire at the hardware store.