I built this CW solid state tesla coil for experimenting with high voltage and fire. It is self tuning to some degree, but unfortunately I couldn't get it to lock on a big enough frequency range for use with chaotic loads like fire. That being said, the arc from this coil is quite fire-like, and is pretty cool on its own.
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Finally some good news! I found a suitable place for a new lab and I'll be moving in this month. It's a big shop in the middle of nowhere that'll be perfect for my experiments. The shop needs some work before I can use it, but it won't be long till I'm shooting videos again! I've already spent the past week carefully packing ...
2022-03-03 05:06:59 +0000 UTC View Post
As I go through the chemical formulary book again, successful experiments have been rare. The recipe that worked the best so far is definitely this silver plating formula. It deposited a beautiful silver layer on this beaker as well as the glass slides I had in the solution.
Of the failures, the worst so far is the "fus...
2021-10-21 20:14:02 +0000 UTC View Post
the formulary saga has been a long one. I said I was going to do a formulary part 3 vid in the past, but then my first two vids got demonetized and blacklisted AGAIN so I became hesitant. This book is too much fun though, so I'm finally going to do part 3 anyway. I do know that YT was not a fan of the homemade cannon, so I'll...
2021-10-12 01:36:12 +0000 UTC View Post
My first episode with the safety third podcast is up! Unfortunately I screwed up my mic settings before recording but you should be able to make out what I say most of the time lol. Subsequent episodes will have better audio.
2021-10-07 23:46:40 +0000 UTC View Post
here's my final draft of the laser oven video! it's silly but I had fun filming it. hopefully this settles all the laser cooking requests I get on my channel. :D
2021-09-23 19:41:49 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm in a weird spot where my editing has caught up to my filming on my new video. Usually I wait till nearly all of the video is shot before editing, but because I usually only film speaking parts one day a week in my shop (neighbors are too noisy mon-sat) I figured I'd take a different approach this time.
The full vide...
2021-09-16 22:03:53 +0000 UTC View Post
Toroidal transformers are so convenient for hobby projects. Need a voltage/current combination that you can't produce with power supplies you already have on hand? No problem! Just wrap some wire around a toroidal transformer until the output on the new coil meets the requirements you need. I don't even remove the original se...
2021-09-02 19:58:27 +0000 UTC View Post
oh yeah, I was a guest on the "Safety Third" podcast recently with William Osman, the Backyard Scientist, and I Did a Thing. I'm not sure when it will go live, but I'll be sure to let you guys know!
2021-08-29 03:16:16 +0000 UTC View Post
this was the first time I was able to expose a camera to a bunch of microwave radiation without killing it :D
2021-08-29 03:14:15 +0000 UTC View Post
if I wasn't having so much fun "upgrading" this microwave, I would have finished the laser oven by now. I think I'll have to cut my magnetron fun early in order to finish the laser oven, but now I want to find a huge CW magnetron to play around with. Maybe a mega-microwave could be a future vid after this one?? another fun id...
2021-08-23 19:27:10 +0000 UTC View Post
good news is that there is a video in the works. bad news is that I'm still stuck living in an extremely limiting shithole that I absolutely hate. this means I'm going to have to continue to push off the big projects i want to do. for the meantime though, I might as well tackle one of my biggest requests, and that is to cook ...
2021-08-19 19:28:57 +0000 UTC View Post
This one is quite different than any of my other videos but this experience was just too crazy to not post about. I put myself in the heart of a huge tornado outbreak in northern Illinois and witnessed some crazy storms.
I've been a weather nut my whole life, and a storm chaser for some years now. I have never seen torn...
2021-08-12 01:41:50 +0000 UTC View PostOnce again I'm cancelling payments for the month due lack of content. My current living situation continues to be trash, and buying a new place for a lab has proven to be a slow, grinding nightmare. In the meantime, I've been working for snapchat under a syndication contract to generate income. You'll get more cool content fr...
2021-06-28 22:59:52 +0000 UTC View Post
As you know, eye protection is an absolute necessity when working with powerful lasers. Laser goggles are nice, but have a couple drawbacks. For one, laser goggles only work for a limited range of wavelengths, which means you need multiple pairs of goggles for different laser colors. Another drawback is that it's hard to see ...
2021-06-07 00:25:21 +0000 UTC View Postonce again I apologize for the lack of content recently. I've stopped payments for this month to reflect the lack of content. My current living and filming situation is extremely limiting in terms of experiments I want to do.
I've been doing lots of real estate shopping recently and may have finally found the perfect pl...
2021-05-23 21:14:59 +0000 UTC View Post
I appreciate all of the nice comments on the last post of mine. You guys are too kind.
Here are a couple clips from my experiments with tesla coils and fire. It turns out it's much harder to "paint" the arc of a tesla coil compared to an arc that's higher current (hotter) but I did find some cool exceptions. The volatil...
2021-04-23 00:21:15 +0000 UTC View Post
i apologize for the lack of content recently. the past couple months have been rough for me. i cancelled last months patreon payments since I hadn't made any content for you guys.
anyway, i've been shooting a vid on tesla coils and fire, and it has turned out to be a fun mashup of engineering and chemistry. building a t...
2021-04-19 03:57:46 +0000 UTC View Post
quick collab I did with Jay of the Plasma Channel on nitrogen TEA lasers!
2021-03-14 20:27:28 +0000 UTC View Post
I recently scored a high powered UV laser diode and decided to build a handheld pen laser with it. I documented the build process and did some demos with the laser at the end. I have no intention of making this video public but I plan on using the laser in future videos. I hope you all enjoy it!
2021-02-24 01:52:06 +0000 UTC View Post
I've been wanting to explore more of the electrical properties of fire for quite some time, and have recently started building a multi-kW solid state tesla coil to investigate this. I have a lot of experiments I would like to try, but obviously I'll be focusing on the coolest ones when I finish the video.
Using a tesla ...
2021-02-14 20:27:26 +0000 UTC View Post
i'm now 0/5 for receiving an intact GU-10(A or B) triode. :( the tube on the right has the glass intact but the filament is totally destroyed with lots of little pieces rattling around inside. what a shame!! i have some interesting ideas to try with my big plasma generator and wanted to use a bigger tube for more power. i gue...
2021-02-02 19:57:35 +0000 UTC View Post
New video on sketchy DIY medical lasers from eBay!! The video is pretty silly, but my hope is that it sheds some light (heh) on these dangerous products that get sold as consumer DIY medical/cosmetic gadgets. The worst product in this video by far is the "Neatcell" tattoo/blemish remover at the beginning of the video. That th...
2021-01-28 23:57:18 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm almost finished with my new video! for the time being, here's the part where I play with a monster surgical laser system
2021-01-26 21:03:06 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm getting close to finishing my vid on sketchy DIY medical lasers from eBay! This video is quite a bit different than usual and in the vid I test out some dangerous laser gadgets that are sold as cosmetic/medical devices on eBay. The video has two functions. For one, it's a PSA to shoot down some TERRIBLE products being sol...
2021-01-23 02:11:11 +0000 UTC View Post
oh yeah, in the video I posted here a week ago I said that I was about to get an ice storm. the storm definitely didn't disappoint and gave scenery that was out of this world. after the freezing rain stopped, we got hit with two rounds of snow, followed by several days of thick freezing fog that left a thick coating of ice cr...
2021-01-10 00:46:18 +0000 UTC View Post
As far as I know, this UV laser pointer I built in 2019 is still the only true UV laser pointer in the world. However, that is going to change soon as I just took part in a group order with some other laser nerds for some stronger UV laser diode engineering samples. The new ones are rated for 250mW at 375nm, which is quite a ...
2021-01-10 00:30:08 +0000 UTC View Post
I didn't end up doing a Christmas vid on my channel so I made this quick vid for my patrons. I apologize for the lack of coherent thoughts here :D
2021-01-01 17:52:26 +0000 UTC View Post
Tesla coils generate a lot of ozone, so any time I've ran one for a significant amount of time I clear out the air in my shop when I'm finished for the night. I do this by opening the door and a window, and use fans to evacuate the air. The other night, I had an unexpected visitor walk in when I was doing this. A cop was on p...
2020-12-20 23:12:20 +0000 UTC View Post
I swear there is no science or logic to tuning a vacuum tube tesla coil. everything must be optimized via trial and error and pain. my measurements and calculations turned out to be meaningless.
no I do not consider that puny arc at the top to be a success given the 3kW input power. I'm slowly getting somewhere though. ...
2020-12-14 02:21:08 +0000 UTC View Post
