USB plasma ball teardown and schematic.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 พ.ย. 2016
- I bought this from Banggood, but it's quite a common device on eBay if you search for USB plasma ball. Once you see that it radiates a very high voltage gradient at high frequency you may choose not to plug it into, or place it near anything expensive....
It's really nice to see that the circuitry inside has not changed from the original units from many decades ago. If anything the components have improved, making the unit more efficient.
If you like high voltage electronics and plasma then this thing is worth buying just for the PCB inside. It's very hard to wind reliable high voltage, high frequency transformers like the one used here, so it's worth every penny just for that little flyback transformer.
Note that it's best not to use the circuit without a load on the transformer to protect it against excessive open circuit voltage.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and high voltage devices for disassembly at:-
www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
The very 1st plasma balls I saw was back in the early '80s at an art exhibit.
It was quite large, about 18-24" in diameter. And cost around $2700.
It's amazing how cheap (low cost) and small these plasma balls are today.
When I was about 10, I remember setting a metal pocket knife on top of one of these and touching/drawing off a modest spark which burnt through paper. As I did this, the wireless door chime was 'activated' from the other side of the house. This makes sense now.
When you have no idea about electronics but still enjoy these videos
I had one of these plasma balls as a kid, but it ran from the mains through a transformer, if memory serves. I found that if I balanced a coin horizontally on the top, I could generate a spark outside of the glass by bring another coin close to it. With steady enough hands you could maintain a constant arc and burn paper with it!
The trick was getting your fingers away quick enough after placing the first coin, I had a black dot on my thumb and index finger for quite a while...
I did the exact same thing! lol
Me too!!!
I used to light florescent tubes with mine
Forget plasma globe Tesla coil is the way to go going yeah you can air dry as a plasma globe with a Tesla coil of course so you could have both now a competition Tesla coil plasma globe that be something interesting
Why wouldn't you put the coin on before turning on the lamp?
Every since I was a kid I've found plasma globes very soothing and fascinating. I never got around to finding out how they worked. Neat video.
In the hallway of my former highschool, there's a picture of me holding a lit full size fluorescent tube, drawing a massive arc from a Tesla coil we excited via a spark-gap cascade. Physics class was fun in the 80's.
In the mid-sixties, my HS era, we had a Van De Graff generator as well as a Tesla. It was great fun to form a human chain and touch one then have someone touch ground.
Probably legislated away now for "public safety."
We had one in middle school, but got it taken away for making a human chain standing on books and shocking people in the hall that walked past.
GoogleMinus we did this to people in our class who didn't realise the styrofoam was there for a reason. :D
Well know I want a video of you guys doing it
I hate using this small ass screen
When i was a kid I had one of these with a setting that would make it "dance to music", where it would basically turn on in the presence of enough sound. I found out that if I hummed constantly so that it would be on, then touched my lips to it, it would shock my lips. I'm still not sure why. I love these things.
Really enjoy these videos and your voice is almost hypnotic and very grounding . ..... and then you pull out the felt tip pen and notepad for the schematic - brilliant .
Thanks for doing this one Clive. I've been making custom housings for exactly these plasma globes for a few years now. I've not touched the electronics just stripped off the black plastic shell and replaced with my own. It's good to have a little more understanding as I hope to be a bit more experimental shortly with the same globes but different casing materials. In some ways it was quite fun listening to your assumptions on the internals when I knew what was inside
Speaking of Plasma Balls, & how they affect sensitive electronics..... I recall working at Radio Shack back in 1991, as a summer job, between my Junior & Senior Year in High School. We had a Plasma Ball on display on our counter, nearby our cheapest digital wrist watches. Some curious customer discovered that holding the face of the watch against the glass of the energized Plasma Ball would 'zap' the wrist watch. To our manager's dismay, pulling the batteries out of the watch & reinstalling them did not restore life to the watch. After that, the Plasma Ball got move to a safer location, far away from anything else electronic! :p
These plasma globes haven't changed much, though they've gotten smaller. As a kid in the 90's I had an "Illuma-Storm Junior" from Radio Shack. As the name implies it was a smaller version of the original Illuma-Storm, but it was still bigger than the ones they make now.
The cool thing about the Junior was that it had an Edison lamp base so it could be plugged in to any lamp socket, and you didn't have to use the stand it came with. I had mine in my bedroom's ceiling lamp for years. :)
That's an amazingly simple circuit - I'll keep these in mind next time I'm after a HV source (or at the very least a transformer). Another interesting circuit is automotive HID igniters - they've got a little HV cap, spark gap and pulse trigger transformer to ignite the xenon bulb.
I remember buying a bigger variant that connected to the mains. Couldn't have it in the same room as the computer and clock radio, it made them go haywire. And it was so powerful it actually hurt touching it more than a couple seconds.
oh my god ive been waiting for this exact video since i was three and fell in love with plasma balls.
amazing vid good job.
As she would say the the construction was similar to a light bulb with the right is on one can build a DIY plasma globe that uses a light bulb as the globe I'm planning on doing one eventually once I can find a suitable flyback Transformer.
Harder and harder to find a black and white flybacks nowadays.
Sure I could cannibalize a security monitor or something one of these days.
Or maybe when those little black and white portable TVs or perhaps a Boombox with a TV in it who knows.
Maybe they should have driver kits that could do this stuff that would have a signal Transformer 4 experiments like that of course legality of that is kind of a?
I had one and the glass broke after I put a penny on top of the glass as an electrode.
I wouldn't have done that if I knew that I could just pull off to reveal the sturdy wire from the transformer.
I used it as a lighter and to melt sand and salt grains onto larger beads which was fun. If you run the arc right at such grains they eventually heat up enough to conduct electricity so well that they heat up a lot, enough to melt.
"Things you really shouldn't plug into your computer." That's a video that I _really_ want to see!
I tried to have cybersex, but the USB port was far too small.
@@BedsitBob LOL
They don't make enough computers to demonstrate them all
Yep that would be a good video.
And then show after effects of doing that what it could do to a computer.
There yet playlist of After Effects of funny things like that and I'm sure there are a few videos out there for like that or at least sections of repair videos regarding that.
Not just USB port stuff but others as well or other equipment related to computers and run things being plugged that use some work connectors but different things going through them!
Such as things that might have 24 volts are more on the same pinza something that would take about five or less.
Yep d-sub connectors sometimes that'll do!
Sort of like those USB decorations that well and those little USB vacuum cleaners that pole way more power than you should pull from computer USB!
I saw at least one USB device once that melted a cheap USB extension!
This is Fire 2 high speed charging!
The current at 5 5 volts on the USB was over 3 amps for some reason still can't wear white was but you should have seen the size of that cable going to the USB plug!
More look like a heavy duty extension cord than USB!
What were they thinking!
Oh and on that playlist and what not to plug into computer don't forget the USB killer!
What next USB bug zapper!
Actually I'm surprise we've not seen that from big quiet for anyone yet.
Maybe it exists for just haven't seen it yet but sooner or later!
I'm not just talkin about little night-light size thing I'm talking about football bug zapper like you'd hang outside that's a few feet tall.
By the way good source for the nice high voltage Transformer!
Once I tore one down it was an old one surprise filament winding vacuum tube rectifier didn't think it would be that old!
Couldn't find any labels on it anywhere I'm probably long gone but yeah that exists!
Once I saw one that instead of regular fluorescent ballast for the fluorescent tube there was actually what look like a ballast tube for a Old School radio.
Even in an 8-pin tube/ relay socket
About the point in this video where you guys are referring it sort of reminds me of ashens even tone of voice Etc for some reason don't know why
@@aaronbrandenburg2441 Simmer down now 🤣
Now you have al the ingredients to make a flame projector, a high voltage source and the solenoid air freshener
"Takes me back to my youth of playing with high voltages at high frequencies" 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣. Love it! What could possible go wrong lol
Anyone remember the big one of these in the UK Science Museum (1970's?) I think it was about 3 feet or more across, and the "lightning bolts" were pretty spectacular. They also had a BIG (4 ft diameter) Whimshurst Machine, and the inevitable Van der Graaf - so plenty of sparks and arcs!!
Your videos are always so informative. This one taught me the right way to draw a lightening bolt!
Had me dying when you mention the switch was live. Handled like a boss.
Commenting 4 years later :-) I found out years ago that if you balance a coin or metal object on the top of the globe a spark will jump from the top to your finger and burn you within a few millimetres. Alternatively if you place your hand on the globe then holder your finger near someone else a spark will burn you both.
If you instead hold one leg of an LED and touch the other to the coin that will also light. and further if one person touches the globe and then hold one leg of the LED and another person holds the other leg the LED will still light. Great fun with Plasma globes!
I have had loads of fun with plasma globes over the years & found most operate between about 15 to 25kHz. Some of the larger ones have produced quite strong near field RFI from around 10 to 80kHz.. (with spurious emissions across LF and lower HF HAM radio bands) If you run one above 100kHz you will find the larger current flow can burn your finger pretty quickly when the plasma arc is attracted to your finger on the globe. : Note: Placing a grounded electrode (I used a handy bit of 4mm CSA copper wire) on the glass it can heat the glass to melting point quite quickly! But this tends to end badly for the plasma globe. Enjoying your videos. Have fun Sir! :-)
This makes me think about building an entire room in my house with neon bulbs across the ceiling excited by HV power supplies
Science project here I come
Actually at one time there was a predecessor to the fluorescent lighting system that sort of work that way except except larger-diameter glass tubes white neon tubes excited by high voltage.
The interesting thing is the system was not sealed completely.
And your ass was admitted through means that it would allow certain gases through it was quite complicated but it actually work pretty well from what I understand.
Also the first Mercury lamps were essentially single phase Mercury Ark rectifiers but being used to produce light.
And surprisingly enough they could even work on DC.
But for the time that was pretty ingenious.
Unfortunately don't have any links to anything on this but it does come from reading.
This is mentioned in some Google books as well if anyone's interested.
But good luck finding it I don't even know if anybody had mentioned on TH-cam at all couldn't find much back when I first looked into it years ago
I remember when they cost £400 from innovations back in the early 80's
Oh man, I used to love that catalogue! I bought my first USB memory stick from there! It was 32 Meg and cost 40 quid :D
+Azayles I still have my first one lying here. Also 32MB and 'made by' Sweex. It still workds :)
I remember seeing this at Radio Shack in the 1980s, in Canada. I don't remember the price.
I still have my fully functional 'Eye Of The Storm' with the two intensity slider controls.
@@louistournas120 Got one at RadioShack around 1980 in Canada for $99.00. Quite a novelty!
Clive try putting your solar desk calculator near it. If you find the right distance and let it sit there it will endlessly display random numbers and do all sorts of operations.. Years ago I used to freak out/annoy my coworkers by hiding such a globe under their desk and placing his calculator or his office telephone above so that the lc displays showed endless and weird activity. ;-)
I had so much fun with my old plasma globe when I was young, I covered the globe with aluminum foil, making a little spike at one end that I burned grapes and other stuff with. I shocked myself a number of times and burnt holes through my nails. I wasn't a very bright child.
You might not have been very bright but the arcs probably brighter than you would have maybe
Funny, I was just typing a question on whether that circuit would drive a neon tube single-endedly (just as you pulled that neon tube out). Several years back, I made an argon-tube light-sabre (30-36" long) with a similar power supply to drive the tube 'single-ended' to make the sabre extend and retract out of the handle. Cool stuff, thanks Clive!
i will never forget the unique smell you get when you sneeze on one of these while it's running
SuperAWaC what?
Ozone?
Fascinating. Thanks for the look inside a plasma ball.
Looking into plasma balls for a prop, i stumbled upon these "usb' globes. Thanks for answering the "can i pull this thing apart without breaking it ?' ! This is going to be great!
I've been doing just the same for years. A doddle to pull apart. The worst but is getting the glass bulb out from it's rubber like O ring but not that bad as the glass feels pretty thick compared to say old incandescent bulbs. If you can I'd recommend pulling said ring from the hard plastic mounting (easily done) and using that as the interface of the prop for the physical mounting
I once tried to generate this effect in a long, valve shaped container, but could never find the right components that were small enough (that transformer's the particular devil) to go into the hand-held device, nor could I draw a decent enough vacuum in the tube whilst trying to introduce the exotic gasses. Challenge issued!
I was watching this with this bulb plugged in to my computer's USB... not anymore. Thank you for saving my PC:)
Had one of those. Plugged in a 9V Wall Adapter to it. The wall adapter would actually put out 12V to 15V depending on load. Made the thing glow really well. Anyway the EM coming off of it killed my wireless keyboard. Always fun to put a layer of aluminum foil on the ball and try to touch it. Gives you nice little burnt pin pricks on your hand where the arch of electricity came off the foil.
Just pulled an 8 inch on of these out of the skip at work.
Plugged it in to an spare 12v power supply and it worked straight away. :)
Imagine when usb3 gets popular and devices like this have the full power of the usb3 spec.
Awesome video Clive! I've just bought this Plasma Globe after seeing this video! Where can you get the mini flyback transformer?
lol the naration was absolutely brilliant... "I think we need to reverse engineer this. be back in a moment."
Well I started this playing and my wife then began talking at me, so I took the headphones off and looked away. Looked back and wondered what on earth were you drawing?? Headphones and a rewind made sense of things, thankfully.
Bigclivedotcom & PhotonicInduction Make the best electronics teardown videos ever!!!!
Absolutely the best.
Speaking of photonicinduction does anyone know that if he's back to doing videos I heard about that wall back quite a while that is but haven't thought the check recently hope things are going okay with him in his channel of course
There used to be a huge plasma globe in the local museum when I was a kid. I used to prank unsuspecting people by putting a coin on top and watch them try to remove it.
Used to? ITS GONE?
On the surface, it seems like a rough load for USB ports to handle, given its operating current, the noise, and that rather large filter capacitor on the input. I think I'll stick to my mains-connected neon transformer. ;) Thanks for the teardown, Clive!!
You need a sound effect.
“I think we need to reverse this, I’ll be back in a bit”. . And the diagram appears.
😂
I remember getting one of these as a kid. I used to set gum wrappers alight with the arcs (and burn my fingers with arcs quite a bit too)
Hi Big Clive! ...... Little Clive here ...... again! 👍😂
These USB Plasma Globes are sold at ARGOS for £15.00, but mine was less than £7.00 direct from China via eBay! A set of Duracell Rechargeable Ni-Cd batteries lasted about 3 hours! As the batteries discharged, the streamers reduced in numbers, to practically nothing! Very underwhelming! 👎😂
My USB Plasma Globe is externally identical to yours, but different inside! The PCB is screwed to the upper case moulding, and on the top it has the transformer and an electrolytic, and on the bottom is a tiny surface mount transistor, and four other tiny surface mount components (resistors and capacitors). I cleaned the inside of the electrode tube, to stop streamers going into the base of the globe! I don't think people realise that the electrode is on the OUTSIDE of the globe, because it looks like it's on the INSIDE!
I have this EXACT ball too. It's working good and definetely worth the money. I bought it for only €13,99.
Cool. Stu here ( and not American ! ). Good advice about not having close to stuff....I have now removed it from sitting next to my laptop :-(.
i like your accent. and you know what you are talking about. you make it look so simple. keep it up
Ladies and gents, a masterclass for taking ish apart!
I have a plasma globe exactly like that, only it's got a clear blue base!
You can buy computer memory modules with these things built-in to them... Perfect for those sensitive devices! *rolley-eyes*
I’ve got an 8” one and it kept me amused for about an hour, I want to get it refilled with a nice xenon/krypton mix like some of the cool display tubes you see for Tesla coils etc.. maybe neon and iodine would look nice too
I love when you do the high voltage hf stuff.But man you aren't kidding,these transformers are very tough to wind for a novice.Although admittedly I've just been taking shots in the dark trying to get where I need to be.
It'd be cool if you did some more stuff along these lines though.
Damn, I used to have a plasma ball when I was a kid. Now I want one again!
Would running one of these have that same effect as ionizer? Especially if one references it to mains ground? or a big metal piece? Looks a lot more fun then your traditional ionizer.
Awesome! I remember wrapping mine in tinfoil to get the sparks out and you could actually draw on it on the outside and burn paper with a paper clip. It was like magic, my favorite toy for a while :)
What would happen if you raised or lowered the voltage going into the globe? Could you modify the board to allow a varying range of intensities or would it just stay the same?
rogertopful pretty sure you can drive them with much higher voltages. Photonicinduction has done a few videos where he does just that.
I have one of these from a US supplier. Have taken it up to 12 volts. Much more than that and the little transistor gets too hot. The brightness and number of streams does change
Some globes do have controls to vary the effects produced
well I was using AA batteries in it and wondering the same thing. i pulled one out and attached a 9v and it was very bright and activate. for about 4 seconds. its dead now, i came here for a heads up on what to replace, and I have no idea
I have one of these that has the exactly same connections, same board etc - but is Star Wars branded and I think it came from a local toy shop. My nephew gave it to me because "it was broken" - I put new batteries inside it and it works just fine.
That was a really cool video! I didn't know you could do all that fun stuff with it. Too bad one can't make a phone holder that would go bananas when the call arrives. I recall there were some stickers that could do the blinking but I would guess they used some different technology and they were really tighny. They also required Nokia 3310 style of the phone and stopped working when more modern phones arrived that were not emitting as much healthy goodness.
Hi Clive what would happen if you put the plasma through a large coil of copper wire would it create enough electro magnetic field to effect small electronics such as a calculator or digital watch?
I have an old Rabbit Systems (ever heard of them?) plasma globe from 1987. Thing has a grounded plug and is rated for 117 volts at 30 watts. It has a microphone and will turn on and off with sound so it can flash with music. Pretty cool thing. It has a logo that says "Eye of The Storm" on the front of it. It has the old style glass antenna inside with a sphere at the top. I think may actually use a flyback transformer like you mentioned in the video. May have to open it up one day and peek inside.
Clive you should checkout the mini USB neon lamps. Some are real neon.
By the way awesome job on your video exultant demonstration and information was detailed very well. It was very helpful to me. Thank you for sharing
If you touched the end of that heavy red lead, would you get a big shock from it, on the lines of what you get from a car's spark plug lead?
The innuendos in this video are strong, naughty naughty Clive!
It's ribbed for her pleasure.
very good. will it stop working at lower hz or will it just not look as continous?
The second most fantastic thing about Plasma Globe's is the static electric effect of grounding dust particles from the air :-)
Supper simple way of cleaning the house hold air you breathe.
I had a plasma ball exactly like that as a kid, except mine didn't come with the USB cord, I used a regular power supply for it. Also mine had a bay for AA batteries in the bottom.
I’ve a a plasma thing to! Got bored and drunk, wetting my finger tip, wrapped it in tin foil, had an amazing 10mm spark from glass to foil on finger, all good for a few seconds, then nasty burning smell and deep burning pain on tip of finger....it gave me a deep flesh burn! Life is interesting!!!
would you consider getting one of the USB killer sticks to do a tear down on its just the sort of thing you mess with
Clive i loved those when i was a young lad, always wanted one. Passed one up at a yard sale last summer for $5. Silly me.....next time.
Used to have a big mains powered plasma ball years ago in the late 80's into the 90's, just died in 1997 though might have went earlier if it was powered up more than once in a while.
Hardly ever see them in the shops these days... though wax lava lamps made a comeback so there may be hope for the humble plasma balls.
Could this possibly be used for a Lichtenburg wood burner power supply and be a little safer?
Don't know enough about transformers to workout if lowering the input current on the primary coil lowers the secondary coil mA rating to something safer or whether this would generate enough to create patterns.
probably a dumb question, but just wondering.
Enjoying your vids and learning quite a lot.
Cheers
I have been burned by the secondary connection of a DC transformer for the larger ones. It may run on 12vdc, but at a very high voltage potential. I also had a12vdc ion generator module powered from a 6 volt battery with pins stuck in foil on both polarities in series with it and even they had coronas on them. The whole thing is an ion generator.
I've rigged one of these to a DIY transcranial direct current brain stimulation device. Works well...
the older plasma balls had a flyback transformer simlar to what you find in those cheap japanese black and white CRT tvs with the built in radios
I did a video on this too. Yours is far superior.
I have this exact little globe. It makes a pretty nice desk trinket. It has over the past several months lost some of its vibrancy.
bigclivedotcom: I bought one for these for $1 at a boot sale a few weeks ago and the HV seems weak, Not a lot of streamers when left alone and when you touch it you dont get a fine ribbon instead you get a thick band of plasma, However if you are touching the globe when you turn it on you get a very nice fine streamer that remains for as long as you keep your finger on it.. My question is that i suspect the HV is oscillating more slowly than it used to, Can you recommend a modification to get more Kick out of this thing and restore performance? or should I bin it?.
i have something very similar to that one. burnt my fingers a few times, blew up a power supply (that wasn't even connected to the plasma ball) that mysteriously came back to life a few minutes later and lit a few fluorescent lamps and CFLs. I have noticed it messes with electronic devices such as a calculator and causes interference with tvs and radios
I want to use one of these to charge myself up so I can have an effect on water and other crap and I was wondering if I could just take apart one of these buggers and get an arc directly into my fingers safely.
+bigclivedotcom Hey Clive, how do you prearrange when shooting your videos? Would be very interested og how you're doing that. Also is it all real time or do you cut a lot? Looks quite difficult how you're doing because it's very good indeed! Do you think in advance what tools you need and put them near your table etc?
i always loved these things as a kid.....
I had one of these back in the 80's! I learned early on to never place a coin or tin foil on the globe and touch it. Nasty shock and a burn.... LOL!
I think they say something about that in the manual I believe and even sometimes on some warning label that might have been missing for one doesn't think to read either one.
Sometimes rtfm is better in the first place if one doesn't know maybe one would know if that happens.
Remember in a science museum there was a big sign on the big plasma globe about that very thing not bringing metal objects within range Etc.
Of course I was standing there someone did it and learn the hard way
Cool teardown!
Nice. What's the frequency and voltage output?
If you can add a way to adjust the frequency and voltage (pots with long nylon shafts), you can add some nice variety to the effects.
I've seen some that run on 4 AA batteries... They ran at 15kHz with the flyback xformer
I feel like a moth at this point, yt serving me only shiny Clive vids now... 🌟_🌟
It makes me smile when he says: "Let's take it to bits" :-D
justpassnthru - Clive: Just got back from pound land with something interesting - "Let's take it bits".
Finally I learn how one of these killed an old motherboard of mine a few years ago, this bigclive subscription really is worth every penny!
(FYI it completely killed the mobo, not just the USB controller or whatever like these BadUSB type devices always seem to do. I wonder if the way it fried my mobo could be used to make an even better(worse?) BadUSB device?)
I have one and use it to test my equipment for EMC.If stuff fails with this it was crap anyway.
Beautiful! Thanks for sharing =)
I still have a ~1980 version of one of these in working order :)
I've had the same one plugged into our DVR which gets about 2 hour of use everyday for 12 months. I'll unplug it now that you say it may affect nearby electronics! the quality of the plasma affect has diminished, probably because of the gases/vacuum escaping.
I ended up accidentally making a cell phone jammer with one when I was younger. I placed a soda can on top of the lamp, got shocked a few times, and realized I can make a small arc of electricity across the can and another metal object. When the arc was visible, the signal on my phone maxed out and immediately dropped to "No service." The range of the jamming effect extended just inside the 4 walls of the room. Leaving the room restored cell signal. I'm curious to see if anyone else has tried this.
I have a plasma globe that can react to your voice. I opened it up and I found a few resistors, capacitors and one Tip 122 transistor. The transformer has no feedback coil. It also has a cd4069 hex inverter. Connected to the base of the transistor. I don't really know why they would use a hex inverter instead of a timer ic but I wondered if you know why it is there.
The 4096 is often used as an oscillator with the advantage of extra gates for other purposes.
I used to have a plasma ball that ran on (I think) 12VDC out of a wall brick. One day, the cat knocked it over and broke the globe. Good news for me, because I think I had more fun playing around with the high-voltage high-frequency board inside than I did with the globe.
Clive, i was wondering, is it possible to modify the circuit, to add an audio input or a microphone somehow, so it can react to music? It would be really nice!
Many of these do have an audio circuit that pulses the globe to the audio peaks, but it's not a nice effect.
Judging by the power plug, it's exactly the same thing they built 20 years ago, but with a different cable (USB instead of an AC adapter / wall wart).
haha, I hae one of these on my desk right now... I got mine from Conrad electronics. But it's exactly the same