Introduction: The Best and Easiest Way to Drive Your Flyback

In this instructable I'll be showing you a super simply way to drive your flybacks! because i know for a fact that I'm tired of transistor type drivers and even the ZVS's are a pain. So get ready for this because I'm sure it'll make you excited as it did for me! heres my video tutorial for some more help.

Step 1: Materials and Important Tools Needed

  1. A Florescent light ballast: got mine off of amazon. just look for anything called a ballast. very old types done work, they use low frequency. so find a newerish kind.
  2. You'll need a flyback of course, get a nice big juicy one for some good arcs! and remember, older the better!
  3. A multi-meter is used to find your HV negative and primary coil in your flyback.
  4. something to submerge your flyback in. you'll want a sealed container, fill it with mineral oil and use that to insulate your flyback. if you dont do this, your flyback is likely to arc to other pins and will burn out.
  5. other commons like soldering iron and wire stirppers. you'll also need a 120V wall plug cord for the ballast.

Step 2: Setting Up the Ballast

The Ballast has a few wires that need to be sorted out. On one side you have white and black input wires for 120V AC that can go strait to your mains. so simply attach a power cord to that. On the other side there are two sets of wires that are clearly seperated. dont worry about one set, tie it off because its unused and will only get in the way. now the set you are using(red or blue, which ever you choose, ill be using blue for example) will have two of the same color and 1 yellow.(im basing everything off my philips advanced....) connect both of the blue wires together into one lead, now that one blue lead and the one yellow wire are the wires that are connected to your flybacks primary coil.

Step 3: Preparing the Flyback

The first thing you must do with the flyback is find its pin layout. you'll only need to find the HV negative pin, and the primary coil leads, so a total of 3 wires will be coming of the pins of your flyback. you can find the primary leads by using the ohms on your multi-meter. list down the ohms between all the pins and find the two pins with the most, that will be your primary coil. look up videos on how to do that if you are confused. To find the HV negative lead you can hook up your chicken stick to the HV out and set the end near all the pins. you can then power on the flyback for a very short period of time and see which lead it arcs to the best. that is the negative HV. WARNING! powering it on to long will burn out your flyback! so do it quick. After you've found everything, solder on some wires. Your going to want to mark them in some way so you know what is what when is all packed up. The next step is to insulate your Flyback, your going to need to get it in some oil. find a nice sized container with a lid that fits your flyback. youll need mineral oil. fill the container with mineral oil high enough to cover the flyback up. then bring your three pin wires and your HV out through a hole in the top and close it all up. And thats it for the flyback.

Step 4: Hook It All Up!!

now all thats left is hooking things up. take the primary leads from your ballast and connect them to your flybacks primary leads. I would use some alligator clips, Dont make it permanent. That way you can experiment with different flybacks. you can either put a switch on your ballast power cord or you can plug it into a power strip that has a switch like I did. Make sure you use a chicken stick when arcing your flyback, getting struck by the HV can be lethal! I'm not responsible for your safety in any way. play, but play safe :D always try to keep one hand in your pocket! wise words from tesla himself. Have Fun and thanks for reading this, Good luck!