Blowing a high voltage fuse
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.ย. 2024
- I found this high voltage fuse on the transformer in a microwave. It seemed a good idea to blow it for educational reasons.
Note that most modern home-microwave magnetrons do not use beryllium oxide insulators, despite the negatarian folklore. But always play safe and assume the worst.
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I'm not sure exactly what I expected from that fuse, but was still surprised by the amount of motion. Simple and effective, the way things should be! 🙂
Should break a 2kv fault nicely, the fault current won’t be too high so it doesn’t need silica filling or anything too elaborate.
I still don't see how a 1.5-2" gap is supposed to quench an arc 3-4" long. Would have loved to see how it performed under intended conditions with 2kV 1A.
@@fvckyoutubescensorshipandt2718 no
@@fvckyoutubescensorshipandt2718 I honestly don't think you'd see much difference at the full 2kV 1A. I have my theory as to why there isn't a sustained arc, but it's at best only partially correct (and I don't have a lot of faith in that "at best" part), so I'll keep it to myself. Maybe Clive will see this and enlighten us! 🤔
@@fvckyoutubescensorshipandt2718 A rough rule of thumb says that 1kV will arc 1mm. (Ambient temperature normal air) So 2500kV will arc only about 1/10th of an inch.
Oh MY... Shades of PHOTOINDUCTION !!! The channel was live about 10 months ago and lasted for 2 months with a promise of returning. Lets all hope that he returns soon as it certainly lightened my day -- literally with flames, motors running at 100X (or more) rpm until all their parts fly out and it grinds to a halt making a wonderful screeching noise. A seriously great channel to watch while we wait for the next Big Clive.
He poped it! 😆
Missing PI too!
Where's my 'ammer?
My guess is he now has better things to do with his time, being married and all. You'd be surprised the tomfoolery people will do when bored enough but have various things lying around with some ideas to try with them, no latest Darwin-Award-making internet challenge required.
I enjoyed watching him blow a 6000 amp fuse with all them microwave capacitors great video that was
Cool! 👍
Would have been interesting to see how big the arc would have been with a HV source. 🤔
That would depend on the voltage source. Given a high enough voltage, that blown fuse could still arc between the ends.
Could just solder in a new wire and try it again.
@@stevebabiak6997 When Zeus is inside your microwave, no fuse will help.
@@stevebabiak6997 the fuse isn't designed for EHT, but it will work to around 12kV, well within the operating voltage of a microwave oven. I can't think of a failure mode that would exceed the arc rating of the output fuse without shorting the windings and blowing the input fuse.
@@stevebabiak6997 that would be the point, the fuse is rated for some maximum voltage, and it would be cool to see how it breaks a DC or high freqency AC voltage source that is close to the maximum rating.
Very nice! Even at 1/10 speed there is a brief glow and then when it blows the retraction is instantaneous. It'd be wonderful to see this with a high speed camera.
Big Clive should send one of those fuses to the Slowmo Guys YT channel to film with their high speed camera. Filmed at very high speed should be interesting.
I was going to say precisely this, but thought I'd better read other comments and replies first. This and other fuses at, say, 50k FPS or more would be really interesting to watch.
@@m3snusteve their video on exploding caps was a dream come true lol
Only 2 frames of movement indeed
Yes, send one to the SloMo guys or Smarter Every Day. Both use high speed cameras quite often.
Clive: “you shouldn’t really play around with these”
Also Clive: “hehe fuse go pop”
*This is such a mood*
High voltage fuses can be quite interesting. In the early eighties I worked on a piece of equipment that provided directional info for military pilots. The final amplifier used 3000 volts and was contained in a drawer of the cabinet. If you tried to open the drawer with the high voltage enabled, it shorted the supply with a ceramic resistor about the size of a paper towel core. The resistor didn't would experience "very audible instantaneous disassembly". So after everyone within 100 yards stopped laughing and you changed your underwear, you had a lot of ceramic dust to clean out of the equipment.
Would you really need to change your underwear?
I would have thought the BANG was so sudden and fast you wouldn't have time to load them before it was all over and your heart was trying to remember how to beat at less than 200 BPM...
😄😁😆😅😂🤣
@@HappilyHomicidalHooligan Messing around with 3kV, there is about 2.5 lifetimes between the time your brain registers something terribly wrong with the monster in your hands and the time that an inventory of vital bodily functions can be completed. Plenty of time for that and more...
The alumina/chromium oxide insulator is exactly the same colour as the refractory gas shrouds used in TIG welding gear. I’d bet they’re very similar in composition.
You're right. 20 years ago when I was TIG-ing we called that pink shroud "ceramic".
Cool story, once when I was finished welding some pipework I put the welder to rest over the stand which was holding the pipework above my head so I could take a look (had to weld by guessing in some parts because there's no room to get your head into the gap to see). So I put the welder over the stand and let it go. Well the tungsten, sharper than the sharpest pencil I've ever sharpened and still glowing white/orange swung down and went straight through my trousers and my leg. That pink ceramic is what stopped it going in any further. It went into my leg about 3-5mm and missed my shin bone by about the same amount. When I had a look, I had a perfect pencil shape puncture. I recovered well I think as cannot tell exactly where this was. I was glad it missed the bone and got back to work.
@@tonyppe oooooo painful 😱
If that is the composition it will fluoresce red under UV light for the same reason ruby does. I doubt it is though. Probably just dyed alumina.
@@Muonium1 I’m going to try that
@@WineScrounger Lmk
Beryllium oxide is actually very white, no colour at all, mainly because the intended use is for high voltage and really good heat transfer, so it is very dense, and normally quite thick. I have some, and the only way to actually tell is with a X ray diffraction, to tell apart from aluminia. Only warnings about them were in the service manuals, telling to handle with care as they contained beryllia. Incidentally a lot of spacecraft alloys, and all high pressure gauges, contain beryllium copper in them, used in spacecraft to make thin high strength parts, and in gauges for the actual Bourden tube used to sense the pressure.
Some types of fuses in medium voltage substations fire a spike out of the end cap when the fuse blows. The spike pushes a lever which shuts off all 3 phases. Would be good to see Clive play with one of these!
Pretty sure he has already exploded a hv fuse / pyro fuse.
th-cam.com/video/7hvg2Wey92E/w-d-xo.html
Opening an explosive 11kV disconnector - th-cam.com/video/7hvg2Wey92E/w-d-xo.html
I was thinking about this type: th-cam.com/video/H6o8a4N9qDY/w-d-xo.html
I'm kind of disappointed that Photonic Induction hasn't done one yet. At least not that I can remember.
This spring loaded fuse reminds me of a previous life. About 50 years ago in high school in electronic shop class we were trying to make a video switch for our fledgling video lab . The single pole switch did not work. The video would just leak across the switch gap. We had to reduce the capacitive coupling. Someone came up with the idea of using an eight pole switch and connect all the contacts in series thereby cutting the signal 4 times increasing the gap and reducing the capacitance .. It was a splendid success.
That is, from a relative layman's perspective, quite neat - the risk of high voltage over normal voltages is arcing, so make a fuse that can't arc.
Nicely designed.
I have opened many microwaves over the years and I have never seen a fuse like this built into a plastic housing, They are usually glass bodied fuses, same structure, inside a protective plastic shell
Same here
I have on hi output power microwaves newer ones
Same here. First time I've ever seen one like that.
I love your videos Clive, I had a bit of a worry recently as I had been pulling apart microwaves just to scrap their parts. The first one I did I took apart quite a few things, even components without 100% realising. You touched on the thing I was concerned about in retrospect after I had watched a video from someone warning about Berillium oxide. I now know that it can be aluminium oxide with a bit of chromium oxide. I just wanted to take the time to say I've always found your videos highly informative and thank you :)
I love that Clive always gives sensible advice. Not being over cautious or wireless, just making people aware of the nasty bits, and leaving it up to them to do what they will with the advice.
In the old electro-mechanical telephone exchanges and associated equipment a spring loaded fuse often referred to as grasshopper or hopper fuses were commonly used. This would be a insulated material like bakelite with two spade terminals each connected to a piece of flat spring metal each with a hole in it where the fuse wire would be threaded through and soldered. When reaching melting point the fuse wire would melt causing the two spring to jump apart. The bottom spring would be on the supply side and on springing apart would make contact with the fuse alarm busbar. This would bring up an alarm and indication of the locality of the blown fuse. These fuses had different colors to indicate the amperage. On some radio equipment we had fuses similar to the one you demonstrated except they were glass tube encased with the coil spring. Often referred to as high speed fused. Then we also had glas tube slow-blow fuses. Similar glass fuse with some granular substance inside and I forget right now what the granules were.
Silica sand HRC (High Rupturing Capacity) fuses?
any video that begins with the words "while dismantling" you know it's gonna be good
Well since Mr. Photon seems to be lost again, thanks for popping things.
I've found blown high voltage fuses at work that have exploded. The equipment I work on is extremely high voltage and when a fuse blows it creates an arc. The spring is there to pull the conductors apart and extinguish the arc. If it doesn't work the arc grows until it explodes. The explosion is relatively small but still quite dangerous.
This was much more than just blowing a fuse, thanks for clarifying the beryllium misconception.
The reason for the large gap is to stop arcing of high voltage. I have seen berilyum that colour in very old RF amplifiers , but I treat anything suspect with great respect. Had some berilyum copper sheeting when I was very young and didn't know about it! Cut myself very slightly with it. It took months to heal lesson learned. Berilyum is dangerous in other ways too!
Funnily enough the HV fuses that I found in all the microwaves I did take to bits were not like the one you showed in this video but instead they were a glass tube-type fuse with the spring and thin wire inside the glass tube and ultimately a white or black plastic holder with thick red wires coming out of each end. (The plastic holder has a tube shape and completely encloses the fuse).
Also as I've seen from parts selling websites you're supposed to replace the whole plastic holder with fuse when it blows even though the plastic holder is quite easy to open, in fact I'm pretty sure it's designed to be open and the fuse removed and swapped.
But I've found some microwaves with this fuse blown and I wonder what could have caused that.
Anyways I did wrap the fuse in aluminium foil in these cases and it worked just fine.
For science of course, definitely not in the kitchen though.
And so far the most impressive thing that I've got from microwaving something that shouldn't be microwaved is literally a jet of molten metal coming out of a 18650 cell actually piercing a hole in the back of the oven cavity !
I've replaced a lot of fuses in my microwaves and those of friends and family, the only thing you have to make sure is that the fuse fits tight in the connectors, if it is loose it is likely to arc and it will not take long to blow or even melt the plastic housing.
From my experience those fuses usually fail due to metal pans, forks or spoons that pass too close to the walls causing an arc and thus overloading the magnetron.
Then in microwaves with grill there are two types, some have quartz heating elements located on the other side of the ceiling of the cooking cavity and emit infrared radiation through a grid that keeps the microwaves inside, others have a tubular heating element mounted on ceramic supports inside the cooking cavity, when these supports get splashed with food and it burns it leaves a conductive soot layer that can be conductive enough to ignite an arc too.
I imagine that the capacitor or the magnetron could also fail causing a short but I have never seen that case, although I don't think I have "repaired" more than 15 microwaves.
Is it a good idea to microwave this?
Those fuses normally fail just from old age, they are a thin wire, and being long and unsupported copper alloy it vibrates, and work hardens, and eventually just snaps Replace with a single strand of thin wire, and it works again, although you can put a replacement fuse in there anyway, they are a little longer than your regular 6x32mm fuse, to get the high voltage ability.
@@nerfinator03 yes it's a great idea if somebody does it and films it then you don't have to
@@davidmunro2077 Unfortunately I didn't record it at the time 😂😜
I’m surprised that you did not think there would be that much movement of the spring. Even old fashioned post office fuses use springy metal to create a large air gap to quickly extinguish any arc. Post office refers to the GPO - the telecommunications company of the U.K. before privatisation. These fuses were used on their 50V DC circuits.
DC pulls much longer arcs then AC... Breakers meant for AC can normally not be used for DC and if they can be used for both typically the ampere rating is half of AC with DC.
dont know if they changed it but several yrs ago the non metallic case ( ceramic) housing had Beryllium Oxide in the ceramic as a binder and for thermal issues. BeO has a very hi melt point and was used in plasma tube lasers. The dangerous part of the ceramic was grinding cutting basically making a fine dust of it, aside from being on the toxic side it also was capable of causing cancer. Breathing in the dust was highly discouraged.
I think you've got a candidate there for a Slowmo Guys video....
I like this idea
Wow! That spring retracted much farther than I thought it would. Thanks for sharing! Cheers.
The retraction distance surprised me too.
use a uv flashlight on the ceramic, if its chrome doped aluminium oxide it will glow deep red
Its so simple yet effective, the big distance comes in handy if you encounter a massive amount of power.
I’ve seen roadside transformer fuses fail first hand, it was louder than I expected but the fuse’s primary job is to work till it fails, so it worked perfectly. I think it’s neat to see more magnetic fuses out in the wild.
For some reason this reminds me of the circuit breakers our local trains with 25kV AC use. Because it’s an AC system, you’ve got to split the system up into grids to avoid frequency drift. Instead of having some really complicated frequency compensation or something, the solution is quite elegant. It’s done with a neutral section, which is what it sounds like.
It’s a flat insulated bar bridging the two live wire sections. The train must be coasting through this (to avoid damage to the traction equipment), and there are sets of magnets on either side. These magnets trip an onboard detector, and this detector cycles the main circuit breaker, which is a big box right under the pantograph.
The reason I’m reminded, is because these MCBs make a really loud popping sound. This popping is the arc suppression, specifically air blast arc suppression. When the MCB trips open or closed, some compressed air is taken from the braking system tanks, and is shot into a cavity at the right time, which extinguishes the arc. If the train driver were to power through the neutral section, the air blast helps ensure that if an arc does form, it extinguishes and doesn’t sustain itself from the very high voltage.
If for some reason the MCB does not close on the second magnet, there is a button in the cab which will cycle the MCB manually. I would also imagine that coasting will reduce problems in the event that the MCB is jammed close and does not open on command, although I think you’ve got bigger problems by that point.
But yeah, there are a few different forms of arc suppression out there. Take all of this with a grain of salt, as I’m just a foamer who’s interested in the engineering side of things.
Edit: here’s an example of said neutral section: th-cam.com/users/shortsoWW29rYSF_E?feature=share
I would imagine based on the heart, that you read the comment. Thank you for entertaining my waffle, kind sir! You’ve hearted a fair few of my comments, but I just want you to know that I absolutely appreciate it. You’re one of the reasons why I want to get into electronics and the like. L
Keep being an awesome bear, and you might just have another bear in the hobby!
What a timing! I found an old microwave next to a dumpster across the street from my house few days ago and got all excited to dismantle it. While I was looking online for info on what I could harvest, I got so many posts regarding that pink ring of death. I'm a physics student and I got a chance to interact with a fusion reactor, Tokamak, and they used beryllium oxide there, and I learned that it's quite expensive thing to be used in such common appliance. So it really stumped me on how can such rumor spread out so vastly. Even if it is BO, you'd probably have to crush it into dust and snort it to be dangerous, and that transformer is a bigger hazard by a few orders of magnitude probably. So yeah, all in all, microwave turned out to be totally functional with 0 noticeable issue, so in the end I decided to keep it for some fun experiments, but when the time comes, she's gonna donate all of her parts for science!
I may have mentioned this , but the magnets ( as shown ) are highly useful . In the kitchen a few lined up on the fridge can hold many steel cooking tools ... but jammed on the end of a wood broom handle will pick up nails / screws / drill bits dropped in your workshop ( suggest covering with a cap from any big spray can , with a screw into end of broom handle , these magnets are very BRITTLE and the cap protects it from knocks ) ...tried - n - tested ....
Thats actually really neat, I never thought about how they need the distance after it's blown so it can't arc
(edit: saw that a lot more commentors did bring up this subject)
The other scary thing about microwaves is the red ceramic isolator on the end of the magnetron. It often contains berylliumdioxide, which can kill/case permanent in the range of nanograms per cubic meters. It can take a couple of years/decades but it is really scary stuff.
The biggest risk that I read about is crushing the ceramic and creating dust that can be inhaled.
I opened a microwave to take the transformer and capacitor, but before continuing I checked online and found about the berylliumdioxide. And immediately put the microwave outside and throwed it away at the dump.
The majority of modern magnetrons use aluminum oxide. There should be warning labels for beryllium.
Well done Bigclive.
We used high power UHF tubes at work that did indeed have Beryllium oxide. As long as you left them alone there is no chance of poisoning. Only the dust would be an issue, and you would not be stupid enough to do that, right?
Fluorescent tubes used beryllium oxide when they were first developed. It was quickly replaced when the health effects were discovered.
@@5roundsrapid263 Yes, having read that - and suffering from health anxiety - when I cut myself on a broken one at work about thirty years ago I had a panic attack and was taken to hospital, citing this beryllium content. Imagine how stupid I felt when the physician treating me said "Right, we've been on to the poisons unit at (xxx) - it's not been used in tubes since the late 40s."
Utility mains here are in the 13 KV range. Rodents had been a problem, both nocturnal and diurnal varieties. Seems like they either got bored with life or didn't have access to non contact voltage detectors. Being aerial service, we were treated with an earth-shattering kaboom and out went the lights.
These fuses have some arc extinguishing property which adds to the sound. The actual fuse element is contained in an 8mm fiber tube which is shielded in a Garolite holder.
The utility finally installed a silicone boot so the drama is gone.
I've seen other line fuses with less drama that are filled with sand to quench the metal vapor.
Still remember as a kid see a squirrel running across the high-tension line at the apartment complex when I was outside and next thing you know boom!
Head there leg there times four.
Tell there but pretty much body nowhere!
Couldn't see for bit from the blue Flash haven't been looking right at it when this occurred!
Nice Clive's back as always thanks for making these kind of video really interesting
0:55 Thank you! Finally some with knowledge/common sense say Its not beryllium oxide, its also the reason the magnetron get quite hot since the aluminium oxide that is used instead is not as good to conduct the heat away but is good enough for a normal house appliance microwave oven. Ceramic that contain been beryllium oxide have been warning signs all over it.
Thanks for a closer look at these, seen them before and always assumed it was a coiled fuse, can see what they really are now and the logic behind them.
Happened exactly what i thought it will. I am still amazed - cool video, thanks for it!
Always wondered what this sorta fuse would look like when it blew; that's very interesting. There's a fair bit of tension on that spring it seems!
That's great to know about the aluminum oxide, I've seen lots of pinkish ones, but never one that had the beryllium oxide warnings. Thanks for sharing!
Big Clive channelling photonicinduction with this!
I’d like to see that at 1M FPS! I imagine there would be an arc for a short period of time that gets extended until it cannot sustain.
Sounds like a job for the Slow Mo Guys!
Interesting fact about one form of metal oxide being a source of pink color. I don't suppose that topic is big enough to create a more regular video where you discuss various materials you could use to color some of your property in a pink color. Anyway, interesting enough to see how simple a reliable fuse can be and how it works.
Chromium trioxide is a deep purple color, but when mixed with white aluminum oxide, it's pink :)
You can get bags of it for growing crystals. It's a carcinogen, though.
@@rich1051414 Useful to know. Thanks. I think I will stick to watching NileRed and stuff like that for now, just to be on the safe side. ;-)
Thank you. A good demonstration.
I'm uploading a slow-motion clip of the fuse pop. The spring contracts much faster than a single frame catches but it's interesting to see how long the wire overloads before letting go.
I'm a service engineer in the welding and power generation hire industry, and I think that insulator is made out of the same material that TIG ceramics are made out of.
I was also a Weapon Engineering Mechanic (Radio) in the Royal Navy and our VHF / UHF transmitters used components containing beryllium oxide.
There was a warning on the door to the UHF office of the hazard of beryllium oxide because in the event of a fire in that compartment, beryllium oxide posed a risk as it could cause serious respiratory illness.
If I remember, beryllium oxide is used because it has similar heat conduction qualities of copper but electrical insulation qualities of glass.
Geek Pub Quiz Question: What material would be the VERY best heat sink material?
Better than copper? How are gold and flowing mercury as guesses?
Water?
The answer is diamond.
It has the best heat conduction of any material. Electronic diamond testers use this phenomenon to distinguish real or fake diamonds in jewellery.
“Big lump of death” … think I’m going to call my microwave that from now on
Interesting!
The string made sure there is enough distance to prevent arcing! NICE!
Neat! Looks quite a bit different than the large class T fuses I'm used to on lithium systems. They tend to surround the element with some kind of fine sand, probably something to do with the large ampere interrupting capacity.
The thick conductor of the fusible material and the high current means the fusible material will stay conductive as a plasma, the highly inert silica sand that surrounds the fusible material, basically quenches the arc by falling into the area left by the failed fusible material. In the UK plug fuses must contain this sand to prevent arcs forming and causing connection cords to melt and burn.
The material around the element after its melted is called fulgurite
A little tip if you want to open the magnetron: If you take the magnets away you can grind/file down the welding around the outside and take the endcaps off the copper tube. Only the big middle part is copper, both ends are steel and pressed, welded on.
And do it on the cathode side! The antenna is spotwelded on one of these "fins" inside the magnetron. But you can easily take out the cathode/heating element.
By grinding down the weld/press you don't destroy anything and get a realy nice view inside the magnetron and on the heating element.
I hope that was understandable 😅
Just recently I took one apart. Now I want to try to cover the heating element in a thin layer of zinc sulfide glow paint, hoping for some slight glow in total darkness. Just waiting for the paint😊
eh ehm... AKCHUALLY... i care about microwaves AND radioactivity as well, sad story is that your experiment will not work (visibly), radium clock hands are loaded with a craptonne of alpha radiation, a magnetron thorium filament emits just a few beta particles, a single magnetron filament is quite hard to be detected on a geiger, but you can detect it at the end, anyways there's no match with a radium hand, that will make a cheap geiger go nuts by just the gamma rays, and radium alphas (the ones that make the zinc sulfide glow) are tens of times more and more energetic
sorry to sound cocky or a know-it-all but don't scratch you head too much when such experiment will not work... that's the reason
if you want a radioactive light source the only way (today... and safely) is getting a tritium keyfob aka "GTLS" but EVEN THOSE are getting rarer now
EDIT: after decades, radium clock hands don't glow anymore bcs the zinc sulfide is destroyed by alpha radioation, one thing you can do is getting a radium hand ad cover it (again) with thinned fresh glow in the dark paint, they say it will work again (maybe less), but touching and handling radium is something i would NOT raccomend... so i'm saying this just as inventory :)
@@redoverdrivetheunstoppable4637 I don't expect it to work, it was just an idea. Like in a spinthariscope I was hoping to see a VERY dim glow, but with so little thoriumoxide and it being so weak I have little hopes.
You wrote beta but thorium is mainly emits alpha with a bit of beta and even gamma decay, or am I wrong?🤔
The zinc sulfide arrived last weekend, I will still test it.
I always wanted such a tritium keyfob, but I live in germany and everything fun is highly forbidden here 😁
@@-Tris- yeah, thorium emits mostly alpha but a magnetron filament is solid metal and the alpha it will emit will be exclusively from the very external layer of such alloy, so they would be like 5% of the total amount, the remaining 95% will be trapped inside without reaching anything
i admit i've never heard of a spinthariscope... i do have heard of watching radium dials under a magnifying glass hoping to see something in today's worn paint, tried it, no luck, i've also used a watchmaker's monocle, i saw nothing
you can still try to order it, even in the worst case they have a geiger at the customs a tritium keyfob doesn't escape ANY radiation... but i warn you that also ebay took away the fun, you don't find uranite anymore, anything uranium is taken down, this policy seems to apply since some months, an year ago you would find ANYTHING... quack radioactive healing mumbojumbos are still sold tho, along radium hands and few other things, like americium smoke sensors, you need to order this stuff from foreign countries... let's skip about vacuum tubes sold from ukraine and russia -_-
@@-Tris- i dunno if you're still interested but i did the experiment, i used an americium button and transparent sticky tape sprinkled with yellow-green strontium aluminate powder, yes, i can say it works, i checked the americium pill on a DIY exposed photodiode geiger and it emits A LOT of alpha, i compared it to a radium hand and it was like 10X more, this mostly because radium paint is intended to trap the alpha inside and glow as a mass, while the americium pill has a spread surface and it has an alpha particles jet
the sticky tape must be covered in powder up to a point it doesn't stick anymore, the whiter it becomes the better it is, then you put it with the powder facing the americium at a max distance of 2mm (you may have seen guides about the spinthariscope), hopefully not touching the radioactive stuff to not ruin it... you can try with a weak alpha source hoping for seeing the single decays but an americium smoke sensor is way better and the powder will glow as a spot, the trick is to let the glow-in-the-dark powder discharge completely and it's quite tricky bcs you have to prepare the rig, let it stay in 100% darkness, wait at least a day, and watch it in complete darkness under a magnifying glass with your eyes completely adjusted, you should see a slightly brighter dust spot over the americium but only trough the magnifying glass
don't worry i'm not nagging you bcs i think you are a girl, i'm 95% sure you're male and i haven't clicked your account
cheers from sicily :)
EDIT: i tried to take a picture.... total black
@@redoverdrivetheunstoppable4637 Hey, thanks for the update. I did my first test yesterday and it didn't seem to work (as expected😅).
I made a zinc sulfide layer on a glass plate with different thicknesses. With bare eyes in total darkness for a few minutes I couldn't see anything.
Even a picture with 10 second exposure doesn't show anything.
The little bit of weak Thorium in the heating element just isn't enough, Americium is much stronger.
I didn't know it works with strontium aluminate, that's interesting.
And yes, I'm male. But half the people here on YT don't realize 😂
never knew something as mundane as watching a fuse blow could be made so interesting. another great video!
Magnetron is one of the coolest sounding words in the English language.
If only Lauri Vuohensilta of the Hydraulic Press Channel lived a bit nearer you could have borrowed his high speed camera.
If Clive did stuff like this more often, he could probably justify just buying one of tesla500's fancy cameras 😸
(For anyone unaware, the designer of the Chronos high speed cameras used on HPC - David aka tesla500 - has been publishing TH-cam videos for a very long time, initially covering miscellaneous electronics teardowns with a slight focus on older high speed cameras (including earlier Phantom cameras, IIRC), before he designed and built his own in his spare time over _many_ years and then creating a company to sell them.
He's made videos about the camera's electronics design, CNC milling the case, building very high power water-cooled LED lights for high-speed filming (of things being dropped into an upside-down lawnmower 👀), and more.
I think Lauri was sent a camera from the first batch for free as publicity for the Kickstarter (along with maybe a dozen other TH-camrs), and that seems to be a great partnership, as David's subsequently appeared in several HPC/BTP videos doing neat stuff with a whole array of high speed cameras 😮)
Great shout-out! His HPC and Beyond The Press channels are definitely worth a sub each
Just wanted to say, thank you for helping me get to sleep over the past many years. Not because your content is boring! I just find these so relaxing!
And I totally have people saying "one moment, please" now 😂
Woosh and it's gone! I love the way you present your videos and it's nice watching a fellow scotsman for once. Definitely guilty of bingeing your content.
On an unrelated note there's a chemistry channel called "extractions&ire" who's currently attempting to build an LED circuit for a UV-C reaction and is looking for some advice. As lighting (especially dangerous light) seems to be your forte I just wanted to bring his latest video to your attention.
Oh and thank you for the entertaining educational content! Electronics has always been an interest of mine.
Essence of photonicinduction ...hope Andy is doing ok
I think you and diodegonewild have much in common even though you both are separated by decades of lifetime, but are bonded by the same (crazy) mindset.
I think you both should cooperate more. I would love to see a project with both of you.
DiodeGoneWild is such a great channel! Especially for anyone that likes Clive’s stuff. I agree, some collab would be great!
Ha. That's true, I see a lot of similarities, especially when it comes to teardowns and reverse engineering! Some mad science is involved too.
These are cool! If you pop them by shorting the transformer across it you can see the arc form and die in the span of a hundred or so milliseconds. Not an instantaneous fuse, but fast enough to prevent major damage
"Don't touch the magnetron, its made of deadly stuff!"
Meanwhile the exact same people: "Sure go play with the electric chair voltage and water, this is perfectly safe"
Clive on this occasion I was not surprised that they took full advantage of as much of the available space as possible. I have a vague recollection of an up-scaled version of that from my days working for an electrical supply authority.
Thats actually pretty clever, it pulls away so it doesn't arc
Such a cool and simple way to do it. Never even thought about the arc factor on these fuses.
Interesting and over so quickly.
Even the < and > keys for frame-by-frame viewing show that's over so very quickly!
It's interesting to see a High voltage fuse in action but it totally make sense for an AC fuse but especially a DC fuse.
You don't want the fuse to blow and the electricity to just jump between the missing link...
OK.
So now reset the fuse.
Hook up high speed camera
Result = another very cool video.
They make regular glass fuses like this!
I've even seen glass fuses with a small resistor in it.
I guess the first is fast blow and the second is slow blow, but not sure.
You had me at 'Blowing' but that was spectacular.
This just makes me wish Photonic Induction was pumping out videos more consistently.
I remember the old distribution transformers had similar fuses on the 66kV side but liquid filled glass and about 1 metre long.
It's just not the same without the oddly sinister pseudo whisper of "I popped iiiiit".
Thanks, I am now educated once again on the subject of things going 'bang' and the release of magic smoke.
That was cool! Do it again, Clive! Do it again!
That's awesome! I had no idea there are fuses like that. Thank you for showing this!
I wish this was filmed on a slow-mo camera though.
these are commonly used in power factor correction capacitors. you have the fusible link inside a fiberglass tube with a mousetrap like spring mechanism holding tension to rip it out of said tube. I've replaced many of these (due to squirrels and raccoons blowing themselves up to red sticky giblets on them). the reason is that high voltage can ionize the air into plasma and still conduct through the arc of the link burning, so snapping the filament away stretches the arc to the point where it can't sustain itself and extinguishes
Love these batshit insane ideas you come up with lol.
Yep, you are right, those ceramics are Alumina, not Beryllium Oxide. That stuff is used in the bores of Argon Ion Lasers where exceedingly high temperatures are encountered. Beryllium Oxide ceramic it is exceedingly expensive and difficult to machine, and as you say, it would have to be covered in warnings!
Also, cool fuse video. It would be nice to see the slowmo guys point their camera at one :-)
BeO is also used in RF power transistors where they need to have the die insulated from but thermally coupled to the metal slab on the bottom of the device. I've also heard of it being used for the window on high power klystrons. It's really pretty uncommon.
Also that pretty red / purple ceramic may be found in Svetlana RF power tubes that were also sold under the RCA brand name, it's so elegant
@@hyvahyva forgot about those! Yes BeO has excellent thermal conductivity.
@@LesLaboratory yup that's why it's sometimes a necessary evil lol
Just repaired my microwave oven, two days ago. It had blown the main fuse. It is a stainless steel Sylvania oven that was manufactured back in June of 2004. I got it for just over $40 CAD, due to it being a display unit, or at least that is what they had said. In truth, only half the keyboard keys were working. But I took the oven apart, and it was an easy keyboard connector cleaning fix. Anyhow, today in 2022, the oven still basically looks a good as the day I bought it. As usual, the fuse blew due to a defective micro-switch that the oven door opens and closes. The switch was stuck in the closed position. This is the second time in the last 18 years that I have had to replace a micro-switch and the fuse. Plus I had to repair the turntable motor. The turntable was not turning. One drop of glue was enough to fix the motor. So, over the 18 years, the total repair costs add up to about seven dollars and 50 cents. Most of the parts were free since I had obtained them from someone else's dead oven.
Nearly forty years ago I was taught that there's a switch on the door that's supposed to blow the fuse. If the door is opened with the oven running, and the oven doesn't immediately shut down, it shunts the power. This fires off as soon as the door is open enough to be a hazard (i.e. just by a small crack). And while they can defective too, be sure to check the door is in good order. If it has gone a bit out of shape it might be inadvertently operating the protective switch. It was common for the switch to die at the same time as the fuse, they're both considered sacrificial life-saving parts.
NB: If you must access the oven part way through cooking you should pause the cycle then open the door. If you simply open the door and expecting the cycle to pause, you're relying on the safety interlocks, and might be giving them more work than cut-price manufacturing has catered for.
I should have mentioned there were two door switches. One that notices the door being opened and aborts the cooking. The "last resort" of blowing the fuse is done by a second switch that's activated after the first one (most likely by having a different plunger depth). If this switch fails it needs replacing by the correct part, it's not an ordinary microswitch
@@CameraTim-DAMMITDOTcom I just noticed my spelling error, the "detective" micro-switch. LOL Yes, the door micro-switch you are referring to is called the "Monitor" switch. Once the door is opened, this switch closes and takes the full current if the 120 VAC is still being sent to the high voltage section. The "Primary" switch is the door micro-switch that connects the 120 VAC to the high voltage section. The "Secondary" micro-switch is the door switch that is connected to the main control board. Anyhow, it kind of freaks me out that the door switches are controlled mechanically in a manner such that they are just slightly out of synchronization. The Primary switch opens first, and then after a slight mechanically controlled delay, the Monitor switch closes and shorts out the input to the high voltage section. Yes I agree that opening the door while the oven is active, is not a good idea. There is the safety issue, and there will also be an arcing occurring at the Primary micro-switch as well, and this will shorten its life as being a working switch.
Thanks from Texas Clive
If you see that pink ceramic glowing then the magnetron is energised and you are too close to it. Discovered that whilst playing one day.
Interesting indeed; the spring forces the gap to open as fast as possible, preventing prolonged arcing.
"Right, on with thee fuse blowing..,. " - You know us all too well Clive! Cheers! :D
Played this back from the blowing the fuse bit at quarter speed and makes you sound absolutely pished lol
Always good technical advice
I wish your camera had a faster frame rate so we could replay the moment of satisfying destructive vapourization!
Was expecting something a over engineered, but that’s simple and effective
I "fixed" my microwave by putting tinfoil in place of that blown fuse lol
>:(
Which is now a potential safety issue, because that’s sort of like putting a metal coin in place of the old screw in fuses.
@@stevebabiak6997 Relax, Said microwave is only used outside to microwave things you shouldn't microwave
@@TheToastPeople never put a hamster in a microwave oven 😲
Nice! But we need a Super Slow-Mo version of that !!
I expected the spring to retract fully (it would be silly not to). Now I'm tempted to round up a couple and blow them with appropriately high voltage (for better arcing) and film the results with a high speed camera.
The vise of knowledge, our Prometheus brings us understanding, I'm surprised the spring hasn't fatigued at all
I was particularly interested in the comment re: BeO. I've met it used in RF power transistors but not many other places simply because of its price. Take a look at the cost of BeCu tools, for example - perhaps the most famous recent use of beryllium is in the reflectors on the James Webb Space Telescope.
Wow. Frame by frame from 2:00 is awesome.
My current microwave simply does not have this fuse at all. Running a food tech room at school, these fuses frequently blew for no good reason, except perhaps vibration and thermal cycling so and I kept a few spare replacements.
My spare magnetron, the one on my desk as I type this, has a white ceramic insulator. Even if it were beryllia, you would have to work hard at it, to grind it into a dust to inhale it before it became a hazard.
"Beryllium oxide ceramic is not a hazardous waste under federal law in the USA." Wiki.
That's actually really neat!
I blinked my eyes and had to view it again .
Thanks
Makes sense having the spring coz if it's really high voltage, normal fuse wire could blow but then arc between the two ends.
they seem to have stopped fitting these to some microwaves. the one in mine blew and it is easy to do, you just need to stop/start it quickly a couple of times as you would if you hit the wrong time when starting, then hit quick 30 or similar.
The repeated surges heat the fuse up and eventually they blow.
I replaced it and it has been running ever since :)
Somebody pushed the big red button... 🔴
0:50 perfect desciption of a magnetron 🤣
Yay, small videos! I love small videos like this...