Art plus Madness: Low Voltage Jacob's Ladder

Today we have a rather bizarre accomplishment: A Low Voltage Jacob's Ladder! That's right! You were probably thinking high voltage in excess of 10,000 volts to accomplish it, But instead, we take ordinary mains of only 120 Volts, then using a random-fire(tm) oscillator + impulse arc starter, we cause 120Volts to arc across the copper electrodes. Notice the magnets on the back? it's job is to force the arc to climb faster so the electrodes don't melt.
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[@deltab9768]

What voltage was the “plasma diffuser” in that other video? Obviously there were high voltage pulses to get the arc started but what voltage was supplied to the electrodes after that?

[@artbeautyandmadness3091]

only 120 volts AC is used but limited to 22 Amps using a large resistor and is present the whole time, but the high voltage pulses starts it in the same way how some welding machines start the arc, this time using a random sequence mechanism so the arc appears like random fireworks

[@deltab9768]

@@artbeautyandmadness3091 interesting! I thought it was something like that. Do you use that same setup (120VAC+ high voltage starting pulses) for all of these videos?
I’m going to have to try this although I’ve got .3F of 200V electrolytic capacitors and.34F of 300V ones capable of holding 9kJ at 170VDC (the peak voltage of 120RMS) so I’d probably go for one big appliance-shattering kaboom.
Or maybe reconfigure them for 600V and then they can all be max voltage and hold 21.6 kJ…

[@artbeautyandmadness3091]

@@deltab9768 Yes. sometimes the 120V is rectified (using 50A diodes protected with tiny blocking capacitors) to pop cheap computer speakers or DC motors.