Power of Plasma Balls Visualized | Don't wear a ring... Jumping won't help!
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 เม.ย. 2024
- What happens if you wear a finger ring while touching a plasma globe? What if you jump while touching the plasma globe? Why are the filaments attracted to us? Is grounding - electrical earthing - needed to attract the filaments of the plasma ball?
So many questions to answer but I will give it a try in this video. Luckily, plasma balls are relatively safe sources for high-voltage experiments :)
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#plasma #highvoltage #spark - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
10:20 That was a hell of a jump
Thanks, I am not athletic at all :) And having one hand fixed on a spot is surprisingly limiting to a jump...
Yep, It was a very spritely-leap!! 😳😆
was about to comment the same, damn good jump
Yeah that jump is crazy
@@brainiac75 I do calisthenics for more than 1 year and pb of ~120 squats in a row, I practice cardio and jumping sometimes but yours was really high! on an unmotivated day I wouldn't be able to do that.
"Petting a vibrating cactus" You Danes have really weird hobbies
My vibrating 🌵 is named lefty.😂
Please, no kink-shaming. ✌
He's Danish? I had no clue where he was from, I don't know accents haha.
"Feels good to know I am more attractive than air
and still can cause a spark."
haha
was waiting for this video for a while!
Still just being used for your potential.
@@barongerhardt damn.
@@barongerhardt you ok bro?
9:02 "explanation for the increased attraction after being touched"
🤔🤔
Relatable. @@pvic6959
i see high voltage. I click
That's dangerous, don't touch high voltage
Oga boga high voltage
Thanks - I do like a good spark :) Especially when they relatively safely can be handled...
It's safe to say that high voltage attracts you
@@artisticyeti22 I assume that you also watch Styropyro?
electricity isn't lazy, it doesn't just go the path of least resistance. Electricity is greedy, It strikes everywhere at the same time as hard as it can, with the shortest path taking the brunt of the force.
Yes, greedy is a way more precise, subjective description. Will have to remember that ;) Thanks for the early watch!
@@brainiac75 I don't have a good description when it comes to transistors and impedance, though. It does whatever it wants then and transistors burn out and then everyone's sad.
7:08 @@brainiac75
it only hurts for a second. typically
If it strikes everywhere it isnt greedy either. Its aggressive
30 years ago I experimented just like this as a kid. I found a tinfoil 'hat' that rose to a sharp point gave the best sparks, putting my finger above focussed the current on such a tight spot that it instantly burned me. The black-red dots stuck around for a few days, my hands and arms were covered with them as I never learned from my initial mistake. I could even use the tinfoil hat to start fires which even as an irresponsible child scared me so I stopped leaving it on 24/7.
Several years ago my mum gave me a usb plasma ball for christmas, despite being in my thirties I felt just like you and was immediately a kid full of wonderment.
Ha! Did the same. Wrapped mine with a hemisphere of foil. Became quite familiar with the scent of toasted flesh. Also discovered if I fiddled with the controls juuuuust right, I could engage a "crazy mode" where the entire sphere would go pink, emit a ringing sound, and trigger the neighbour's garage door opener when touching the globe.
Funny story actually... I once had a plasma ball that I bought off of eBay (this was 4 or 5 years ago) I was running it on 24 volts because I was curious what would happen. I was arcing a piece of metal to the glass and after a couple of minutes, the whole glass ball EXPLODED! Luckily, I was wearing glasses and none of the glass went in my face and I was fine but holy hell was it scary. It was something I was not expecting and I'm never going to do that again. I have a collection of old and new plasma balls and I'm still adding more to it. Let's hope that none of them go nuclear on me...
Sounds like internal stresses in the glass got released once your pinpoint hotspot either melted through or caused a thermal fracture. I imagine the higher quality globes might be annealed (heated and let cool very slowly to reduce internal stresses), but your cheap eBay one, I guess they skipped that step. What's a few severe eye injuries for the sake of PROFIT! 🙂
Yeah, the single spot overheated the glass. They probably use a cheap untempered "soda glass" which means that all the internal stresses will cause the ball to shatter upon impact or pin-point heating
I remember when the plasma balls were first available in the mid 1980s. They were over $2000 then. Now they're a commodity.
Yep, it is surprising how cheaply they can be made today. The 5" globe was only around DKK 80 / USD 12 brand new including 25% Danish VAT. But without a heatsink on the transistor it is not exactly well-built ;) Thanks for the early watch!
@@brainiac75 I would love a link. All the globes I find are too expensive for a curiosity.
@@ThePickledsoulhome bargains, dollar tree type shops sell them,
A friend of mine got one in probably the late 80’s. I think he paid $100 or $200.
especially when working with high voltage/current systems, it's worth remembering that electricity follows *all* available paths (inversely proportional to each path's resistance)
great video and i don't mean to be argumentative, just that this is one of the cases where "path of least resistance" can be misleading in a way that gets people hurt!
AlphaPeonix has a video titled `How does electricity find the "Path of Least Resistance"?` While I know exactly what what you mean, it's a super great demonstration. It can also be easily expanded to show how even if there is "infinite" resistance, you can still have energy flowing in an AC circuit.
@@arthurmoore9488 ooh yes, agreed! i'm only a dabbler in RF/EM stuff so wanted to avoid overstepping and saying something confusing or misleading. plasma lamps tho are getting into the voltage/frequency range where electrons start to get frighteningly "creative" with the definitions of "path" and "resistance" haha
Whenever you give the high voltage warning I have a PTSD moment and want to start listing the different way to keep safe if you are working with high voltage because I have been shocked hard. 10,000 volt DC transformer, 1 Farhad capacitor, 4 Farhad stiffening Capacitor, house hold 110v a few times, household main and the topper of them all, Lightning. I was struck in the back by a tendril of the main bolt.
So I take electrical safety very seriously and thank you for giving a PSA about the dangers of high voltage, and all the others as well.
Did you have lasting health effects from any electric shocks?
@@JohnShalamskas you better believe it. How I'm alive is beyond what any doctor can figure out. Fortunately it hasn't done much to my brain but my heart has scars apparently. I apparently have 3 Lichtenburge scars on the outside of my heart that is visible as scar tissue in x-ray. The mark on my back from the lightning has mostly faded. When I got the full jolt of household power something happened to my elbow. When I took the 4 Farhad stiffening Capacitor hit it was fully charged and I rode through it till I could throw it away.
I also don't see in the normal colour spectrum, it's slightly shifted towards the infrared side. I can't see white. Even titanium dioxide looks pink to me
@@Mikkelltheimmortalsounds like the origin of a super hero. Struck by lightning and now has enhanced vision! I'm just not sure how you would put your new skill to use...
@@TwistedPresence if only. Actually my vision has kept me from getting a pilot license and a few career choices because you have to have proper colour vision for the jobs.
lol
Awesome new video! I am in love with high frequency high voltage circuitry! Very awesome.
well your in luck they are also attracted to you!
@@Dindonmasker I should have saw that coming... haha
Thank you once again, I've been watching your channel for a long time and have watched pretty much everything you've made. I find myself missing my plasma ball more now. Always great to see you exprimenting, no matter what you tinkering with. Hope you have a lovely day
“Well let’s see, I’ve got a ten Kroner, a five Kroner, a twenty Kroner…no, wait-that’s another 10 Kroner.”
That driver set....I need this
Capacitive coupling. I taught my 5yo daughter something similar a couple of years ago. Place a square piece aluminium foil over the plasma globe. Press it down flat around the globe, and twist each corner into a point.
Thanks for another awesome vid Brian!! Back in the 80's mine and my brother's 6in plasma-lights had adjustment knobs on them and at maximum power they would create large swarms of filaments like yours when you swapped globes. They must've had a large power supply already in them. Look for one of these from the early 80's and back. 😎👍
Thank you for showing us all unique things that sturr our minds to understand the unknown.
You don't even need a coin. Any long piece of wire will do.
But aside from being careful with electricity and sparks and fire hazards... Just note that your piece of wire becomes an antenna that can wreak havoc on other electrical devices, killing them.
And in any other case, you could also technically be jamming radio frequencies. Which i am sure is illegal no matter where you live.
I liked the references 😂
Also "increased attraction after being touched" 😂 I caught that one! 😏
Hehe, you are doing stuff on your channel that I used to do back in 2010-2011. If only had I known that I could turn this into TH-cam content 😁
Loving the scientific jumpshots! Wonderful little experiment with the plasma globe, cheers!
Your 'grounding' to the radiator won't work properly unless you file the paint away on the radiator and have a clean metal to metal contact.
Saw stop uses a similar effect to detect blade coming in contact with flesh.
good to see that you feel happy that electrons are attracted to you.
Your voice is so enchanting 😮 great vid btw 👌💪👍
Glad you like the video - and my voice ;) My voice and accent were actually mentioned a lot when I asked why people subscribe to my channel (back when I passed 100K subs).
What is this nostalgic feeling is it simply because your quality content and imaginative tests or is it because I like you used to play with these when we were kids.😂
High voltage is so fascinating. It's great to see another high voltage video from you. Thanks for your amazing work!
5:45 2016, that is time I've started watching your videos. Man I feel old
5:50 oh you know deep down you want to touch it...electroboom would have. 😅
Many years ago i had a plasma ball, and did some similar experiments. However, i used a pencil instead of another coin. The graphite point would start the spark, and as the wood heated, it would char and start conducting electricity, forming some small lichtenberg figures.
Another stuff i did was to replace the coin on the glass with a paper painted with graphite. The arc would cut the paper on where it struck.
Beautiful footage ⚡️
Thank youfor amazing experiments
About the grouding, something similar also happens with electric guitars, if you dont touch it its very noisy, as soon as you touch the strings the noise vanishes
Your body acts like an antenna for electromagnetic energy. When you touch the grounded strings, that energy goes to ground via the strings, so you stop radiating it into the audio circuitry of the guitar.
We used to do dumb stuff when we were young. We put a broken guitar string around one of the plasma lamps shaped like a spiral. If you want to burn a design onto your skin like an electric tattoo gun, that'll do it! 😆
For all the people who don't have radiators in their homes. They are grounded through the copper pipes. Usually they have a grounding cable connected to them where the grid connects to the house.
It's very handy to be able to avoid shocking the computer parts when you build your own PC by touching the nearest radiator.
This misconception has been around since forever. Unless you're standing bare foot on a conductive floor. No electricity will flow through your feet.
Plasma in plasma globes is one of the very few things that is attracted to me...
Try touching it with one hand, with the other hand stretched out as far away as possible, then bring the outstrecthed hand in towards yourself. I guess your legs will still mess things up, but you could always do it on the floor and tuck yourself into a ball as much as possible. I'm pretty sure you'll be able to have some control over how strongly the filaments are attracted to you, as you reach your hand out farther from the ball and increase the voltage drop across yourself.
A dangerous but fun thing you can do is wrap a coil of wire around the plasma ball. You can get scarily high voltages that way, more than an inch of arc in air. I learned that touching such things is unwise but probably not deadly as a 10 year old sitting with my bare feet on a damp concrete basement floor.
Adding a mechanical pencil to the copper windings creates a low powered etcher,
Lightly burns paper
Absolutely loved it
Relating to the increased attraction between the globes after your touch:
The high frequency fields build static charge on the glass, wuich you neutralize by touching. The globes then likely then build the charge again, with a higher concentration of charge on the portions of glass exposed to greater electromagnetic flux.
You could test this by rotating the globes after creating the "attraction," wish I had a second one to verify it myself!
Are you sure the wire was grounded? The radiator is painted.
Looks like it wasn't. But it was capacitively coupled for sure.
It doesn't make much difference for high AC Voltage. The insulating paint layer will act like a capacitor like the glass globe. Possibly the paints insulating properties will break down due to the high voltage and create a connection
As a kid I had fun burning things by putting aluminium foil on top of the ball.
I have actually been thinking about this for a while (the part with the powersupplies) and there is surprisingly little info on the internet about it.
Tak for denne gode video Brian 😄
I believe it is effectively a small tesla coil. It would be interesting to see what happens if the power supply was replaced with a wire from a small tesla coil, such as the ones sold on Amazon that play music.
@@betterl8thannvr i have one myself and have taken it apart and such. Its not a small teslacoil but a small flyback transformer. I just didnt want to break mine as its quite old and has a cool effect.
Glad to be able to give you some answers ;) Velbekomme :D
@betterl8thannvr The cheap plasma globes use a much simpler fly-back transformer but a Tesla coil could be used. The plasma balls just need the right combination of voltage and frequency to work well. I do have a small music Tesla coil (unboxed on Patreon) so I might try your suggestion ;) Thanks for the early watch!
@@betterl8thannvr Styropyro tried this a few years ago on youtube, and like he usually does it's not a tiny cheap coil
My guess is that when you touch the undervolt one, you localized the ions inside, making that one stronger and more likely to stay there afterwards. With the overvolt one, it will pull that single filament towards it, preventing any others to form as strongly.
Back in the early 1990's, Radio Shack sold Plasma Bulbs, and cheap LCD Watches. In some stores, they unwisely chose to display both on the front counter.
From what I remember, customers discovered that placing the cheap LCD Watch near the Plasma Ball, would effectly zap the watch in short order, rendering the watch a glorified paper weight. It took manage a solid year, before they discovered the problem, & moved Plasma Ball away from the watches. 🤪
Superb !......cheers.
I went into this feeling pretty sure the answer is that whether you get arcs here has little to do with grounding, and more to do with capacitance. The more surface area the thing that touches the globe has, the more the arcs would be drawn to it. I don't currently have a plasma globe to test this myself, but why not try various non-conductive materials as well? Human skin isn't even all that conductive really, but you have a lot of it for charges to collect on.
I have never owned a plasma ball... Why I never bought one is a mystery. But now as a middle aged boy I just placed an order. One for me and one for my 5 year old nephew.😊
Besides the electric shock warning, you probably should also add a warning about ozone; I still remember the smell these things produce after a while. I once read a sad story about some sort of equipment that indirectly produced ozone (maybe it was a Van de Graaf generator, or something, maybe a plasmaball too, I don't remember), was left turned on in a closet in a university where they also kept their lab animals; the space wasn't well ventilated enough, and next day, or after a weekend or something, when people came to get the animals, the ozone had killed them all :(
I have a few, some are attracted to each other, some push away and extinguisch the others when near. I guess it's either some polarity or they interfere with each others power supply.
Ive always wanted one of these
They've never been cheaper than now. And surprisingly enough still available off-the-shelf in some Danish supermarkets... Thanks for the early watch!
Interesting. The way I see it, it's high frequency, high voltage and very low current flowing in a circuit that consists of the step-up transformer, electrode, air, glass, noble gas, glass again, ball surface, (optionally) your body, air, ground, mains grid, power supply internal capacitance and coming back into the step-up transformer. It's all about capacitive coupling, and enlarging the surface area means there's more capacitance for current to flow through, making the impedance lower at high frequencies and forming the preferred current path. I'd say "the path of least impedance".
Quite amazing, specially when you jumped 😉
I was waiting for the word "Capacitance" to rear its head.
And your body mass makes a nice capacitive plate, much more so than a coin.
You *are* high frequency ground. I did not figured out why however.
Either you are capacitively coupled with Earth (several picofarads are enough) or air itself is kinda grounded and it slowly drains charge from you.
More like 70pf for a human body at radio frequency.
i love this channel
I had one of these when I was a teen, and one day I left it turned on a shelf, I must've bumped it a little at some point and it got nudged close enough that it made contact with the wall; from what I remember, I did not see any unusual amount of sparks heading to the wall, but a little while later I heard a pop, and looking at it there were no flying sparks anymore, but there was a small round hole on the glass where it was touching the wall. I suspect over time the corona discharge concentrated on the spot touching, or nearly touching, the wall heated up the glass, possibly eventually to the point of making it conductive which would accelerate the process by providing a easier path for the sparks than the insulating cold glass everywhere else, and ultimately while I wasn't looking the sparks focused thru the tiny conductive hotspot on the glass and molt thru and let the gas escape and regular atmosphere in :(
IIRC, there were no scorch marks on the paint on the wall, so it must've happened quickly.
That was a really good jump.
The reason they attract more after you touch them is because every time you touch they get this feeling and every time you touch they swear they can fly. They can feel their heart beat fast. They want this to last. They need you by their side.
Capacitive coupling, at play, visualised!
Nice video as always! I feel it might be interesting to see what happens if you put the internal high voltage wire touching the outside of the glass, and what if you had multiple HV wires on the outside, will it affect a normal plasma ball?
Capacitance and a relatively large mass.
the plasma balls run at a fairly high frequency in the low MHz, there is enough capacitance between the ball and you to make a good sized AC current to flow
As a kid I found out if you spit on your hand and pressed it against a plasma ball for a while it would "cook" the spit. I was a very bored kid.
Really nice ! I guess it explains alot. I originally thought that due to parasitic capacitance of our body to ground there could be flows of electricity like the plasma filaments (it was mentioned in a ElectroBOOM video but i could have miss rememberd the concept)
High voltage + (relatively) high frequency AC is a strange beast.
I actually bought one in the xmas sales just for nostalgia and wonder
For as little as £10 half price
Looks really cool up at the window at night,
Seen from outside As the globe is less visable
Looks very alien at first glance when returning home
That was a good jump :)
Great Video as always!
I definitely need to buy myself a plasma ball again 😅
Yep, I just can't get enough of them. I still enjoy watching their inner and ever changing plasma structures. My only complaint is how dim they are when not touched. Not easy to film in a lighted room ;) Thanks for the early watch and comment as always, JustPyro,
Awesome.
As far as I know Radiator paint is not known for its conductive properties. A better connection would i think give better results
I think the plasma globes seem to attract each other because they affect the charge of the air around them by attracting air particles of the opposite charge, so the air in between the plasma globes has a stronger charge than the air next to only one of them and therefore attracts more tendrils. Not sure why touching the globe has a strengthening effect though.
the ,,magical hands,, might be due to how electricity and plasma work. as we know, we need a ground to attract those filaments. the underpowered one might think the hi powered one was some sort of ground. or maybe the plasma just attracts itself due to an electromagnetic field idk
The date on the PCB indicates when it first was designed. So it gives a range of being made after 2016-today
What's funky is you can hold a fluorescent tube/CFL near a plasma ball and it lights up.
You can use a bare fluorescent light bulb held in your hand (on the glass) to probe an HF or VHF antenna for voltage nodes. Of course you also need to energize the antenna with RF energy to see the bulb light up.
ah yes, i remember leaving pennies on these at every hotel that had them, gave nice shock to who ever went to pick it up.
I played with this as a kid. Lit gas bulbs and put tons of aluminum around. The more aluminum, the bigger the spark
I may be wrong but I'm sure you can cause a fluorescent bulb to glow/turn on by moving it close to the plasma ball. It may work with other objects.
I would guess that oils from your skin or possibly salt from a tiny amount of sweat or some combination of the two is what makes for higher conductivity on the surface after you've touched it. The tiny amount of moisture would probably evaporate and reduce that conductive effect, but I'd like to see what happens if you wear a conductive glove that blocks any sweat or oil from your hands from transferring to the globe.
The probably appear different after you touch them because you set up a higher current arc and it will take some time for the ions to diffuse in the whole globe volume.
I did this with tinfoil instead of coins as a kid and zapped myself quite a few times
Place a fluorescent tube next to a plasma ball and watch it glow.
@ElectroBoom did a bit about a peizo electric switch effect where rolls of aluminum foil could be induced to form a connection with a nearby lighter-strike. I suspect it's that phenomenon...
The foil does all the work, it is just a safety to use a transformer. Each direction looks like an easier pathway, but as soon the thin foil gets very hot, then it must take new paths, but each path gets too hot, so you actually see the lightening die, then it starts again. But the argon undergoes elementary fision, they showed it with neon, your smarter than me, i dont own one.
darn , someone bothered testing with isolated wire . Congrat . Now you know what false signal is
Should try a high powered magnet to see how it affects the plasma flow.
The distance of the spark is creating amperage that is why you are feeling it. You are a ground. The heating is also a result of the amperage.
i wasn't expecting the NBA grade jump 😮
And a question, what is that element wich looks like microphone in both balls @5:41 between switch and huge electrolyte and @7:16 right to the switch in smaller ball ?
I have a super old 12 inch plasma ball and it is 100% not safe. It will burn your finger alone after more then 30 seconds. Its amazing though, throws a ton of plasma arcs inside, more than even the swapped ball in the video.
Pretty sure the internal power supply is close to the lethal level.
If you think those sparks hurt. Try using your thumb nail. The spark will run alone your thumb nail but not be conducted to it.
The orange Sparks on your finger and ring are because of the sodium in your sweat😅
That’s old news. I used to do this as a kid some two years ago. I’d place a key or coin on the glass and pull the spark off that object.
As a kid, I put a penny on top of the globe and would touch it
Hello good sir, i have a question about lasers. I do have a 532nm green diode laser pointer and it lights most of the stuff i shine it on in a bright green, as one would expect. But when it hits certain objects, it does not look green any more. This occurs when the object is of a neon colour, for example Red and orange Highlighters/ Textmarkers. Same goes for orange plastic clamps from the home improvement store. I also have a coffee mug which is neon orange. Pointing the green Laser at it makes it flouress bright orange only, no more green light can be seen. Several other random things made of colored plastic do the same thing, the laserlight returned is not green any more but different shades of red and orange. Do you have ovserved this effect already yourself? Do you have any idea what is going on there? Would this be a topic for a video? Best Regards 😊
Interesting. 532 nm can make some fluorescent materials fluoresce - though 405 nm violet lasers are much better for most fluorophores. I doubt all the green light is converted by the fluorescent materials. I think you experience a mixed color where your eyes combine the color of the green laser and the fluorescent color into a third 'apparent' color that is actually just a mixture of the two. I have noted it as a potential video idea :) Thanks for the early watch!
@@brainiac75 glad if i could spark your interest! 😊
My thougts about the sparks while insulated, its an high voltage high frequency ac source. if the body is large enough like an bottle of water hanging insulated from an wire, it wil most likely also spark. first its get loaded with electrons on the positive cycle, then the electrons are taken away on the negative cycle creating a continuous voltage differential and thus a spark. Some sort of capacitive coupling. Can you try this with Franklins Bells (Lightning Bells)? Nice video as always, informative and entertaining. Thanks
I accidentally discovered it as a kid and started burning leaves with it, probably not the brightest idea but hey I'm still here
Put some graphite fiber whiskers under the coin, the structure will create pressure to eject electrons into the air
Interesting. Will have to look for some thin graphite pieces and test it :)
the attraction increased after touch because you discharged any building charge from the glass globe.
and you can make a 1-2 cm spark between the wire and the negative side of the hv transformer, 4x bigger than with metal on the glass