Mains powered flyback driver for HV source?

[Lisandro Pin]

Has anyone tried a mains-powered driver circuit for a flyback with a
hand-wounded secondary to be used as a HV source? I've been
experimenting with the common two-transistor driver design (with great
sucess), but it needs 12-24VDC, and i want to keep the design as simple
as possible as i want to build two small standalone HV displays (a
Jacob Ladder and a Plasma Globe, both working fine already). I know
about mains powered devices and safety (specially with HV).

So, i came along this site (
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/5322/simpleign.htm ), which
describes two of such circuits. The first one is particularly
interesting to me; a dimmer and a capacitor in series with the coil -
as simple as it gets. It would be great if i could use a
dimmer/resistor and a fuse for safety, but what kind of performance can
i expect to get from such a circuit as opposed to a pulsed-drive
current one like the two-transistor design or the second one in that
page? Can anyone comment on these?

 

[JustMe]

Has anyone tried a mains-powered driver circuit for a flyback with a
hand-wounded secondary to be used as a HV source? I've been
experimenting with the common two-transistor driver design (with great
sucess), but it needs 12-24VDC, and i want to keep the design as simple
as possible as i want to build two small standalone HV displays (a
Jacob Ladder and a Plasma Globe, both working fine already). I know
about mains powered devices and safety (specially with HV).

So, i came along this site (
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/5322/simpleign.htm ), which
describes two of such circuits. The first one is particularly
interesting to me; a dimmer and a capacitor in series with the coil -
as simple as it gets. It would be great if i could use a
dimmer/resistor and a fuse for safety, but what kind of performance can
i expect to get from such a circuit as opposed to a pulsed-drive
current one like the two-transistor design or the second one in that
page? Can anyone comment on these?

All I can see is two dangerous circuits that I wouldn't spend a single
second on. Anything that is directly connected to mains supply in this
manner has a very significant chance of causing the death or injury of the
builder/operator. Move on to safer things.

 

[Lisandro Pin]

Oh, i know they're not nearly as safe as the DC driven ones - i can
deal with that. My main concern is performance.

 

[Rich Grise]

Oh, i know they're not nearly as safe as the DC driven ones - i can deal
with that. My main concern is performance.

So, spring the ten or fifteen bucks for parts, slap one together, don't
kill yourself, and report back with your results.

Good Luck!
Rich

 

[Lisandro Pin]

So, spring the ten or fifteen bucks for parts, slap one together, don't kill yourself, and report back with your results.

Just did It works perfectly fine, through performance is not the
same as a proper high frequency driver - i get lower voltage out of the
system. I can't measure it, of course, but it's clearly making shorter
arcs. Evidently flybacks don't like 60hz...

 

[Winfield Hill]

Lisandro Pin wrote...

Just did It works perfectly fine, through performance is not
the same as a proper high frequency driver - i get lower voltage
out of the system. I can't measure it, of course, but it's clearly
making shorter arcs. Evidently flybacks don't like 60hz...

Why can't you measure it? Haven't you read my instructions on
how to easily make your own high-voltage ac capacitive divider?
They're incorporated into Sam's high-voltage how-to web site.