Mains powered flyback driver for HV source?

Question

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 (

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), 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?

Lisandro Pin · Accepted Answer

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

Rich Grise · Answer

So, spring the ten or fifteen bucks for parts, slap one together, don'tkill yourself, and report back with your results. :-)Good Luck!Rich

JustMe · Answer

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 · Answer

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 · Answer

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.

Lisandro Pin · Answer

To be honest, i didn't bother much with it - other than the "oooh!" factor of the dancing arcs, i don't really care how high is the voltage. I always went with the 1kv/mm rule of thumb.

I might try it sometime soon, if i have some spare time.

Mains powered flyback driver for HV source?

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