How to Make a Plasma Globe or Ignition Coil Driver

Hi if you are looking for a plasma globe driver or you want to make an ignition coil that zaps things, you have come to the right place. Recommended for people experienced in electronics only!

If your interested in jets here is mine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t8qsfF32TI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_2OUc3sqHk

First some safety issues; this project runs off 240v AC or 120v AC so please be very careful as house hold current can kill instantly, if you touch a live wire your hand will grab the wire and you wont be able to let go. I found this out the hard way. So do not make the same mistake as me. Oh when sparks jump to the earth they generate ozone which can kill if you breath in to much , only small amounts exist in this case. I am not responsible if any property of yours is damaged or you or some one is injured in the process of making this.

To make this the components you will require are:

An ignition coil the old sort.

A light dimmer preferably over 1.5amps or 400w

Wire any sort

A large light globe incandescent for the plasma globe

A container if your making a plasma globe

A cord that can plug in to the power point, please don't take the one of the TV or fridge find an old one that is no longer needed.

Some oil and a jar if you have a low rated dimmer.

A hot glue gun is very handy in making something like this.

Step 1: Putting It Together

Get the active/ live wire of the power cord and connect it to the Ac active/ live wire as shown in the picture, then connect the neutral wire of the power cord and connect it to the Ac neutral wire. Please follow the diagram below.

Additional notes:

It does not seem to make a difference which wire on the dimmer is connected to the AC active/ live input line.

It DOES make a difference which wire on the capacitor is connected to the active/ live Ac wire, so make sure you connect the the active/ live AC wire to the positive side of the capacitor and the output from the negative side of the capacitor to the positive terminal on the coil.

And as some people still dont understand, DON'T touch anything while it is plugged in or you will get fried. and make sure you discharge the capacitor before you touch any thing, just put a bit of wire across the capacitor till it sparks.

If your wondering what the rating is on the capacitor , it was about 1.2uf 400v-500v
the higher the uf rating the thicker the spark. i used one at 300 uf and the spark was about 4mm thick not recommended though it will kill alot easier than a thin spark. The small capacitor came from a household fan motor.

The dimmer , if you have a low rating dimmer like i did, take the plastic outer casing off the dimmer. which would leave you with a circuit board with a pot, resistors and capacitors on it. Turn the dimmer pot to about medium and chuck the hole thing in a small jar of oil, i used hydraulic oil. And have the wires poking out of two holes drilled in the lid.

The AC active/ live on the power cord would either be brown or red. The AC neutral wire is blue or black usually on the cord.

Step 2: Plasma Globe

To make the plasma globe thing, just find a container to stick the ignition coil in and the rest of the electronics. I used a bit of pipe with the bottom sealed off. get a lid and drill a hole for the light globe to fit in. Connect the light globe to the hv supply of the coil, by wrapping a bit of wire on the bottom of the globe, make sure the wire is touching the input points that go to the filament, connect the other end to the hv supply. Then fill the container with oil I used hydraulic oil some people use cooking oil or mineral oil. Don't forget to put a wire on the outside leading to the - terminal on the coil. Glue it up or just put on the lid make sure it is not going to leak.

Wrap an earth wire around the globe about 3 turns on the top and connect it to the wire that leads to the - terminal on the coil, that is the orange one in the picture.
The earth wire on the globe will make more sparks and ozone so be careful, it will work with out the earth wire but not as well. If any one gets one of these working, when it is running you should be able to smell something strange, I am assuming that is ozone.
Also i added an extra RF filter to cut out the interference with other electronics. There should be an RF filter in the dimmer already. If the hv wire touches any other wires (plastic coated or magnetic) it may arc into that one.

It may look nice but DON'T touch it unless you wanna die.

The whole thing uses 100ma@250v and the output is about 0.9ma@ 30kV i think. Mine anyway yours may be different.