If you need assistance, please send an email to forum at 4hv dot org. To ensure your email is not marked as spam, please include the phrase "4hv help" in the subject line. You can also find assistance via IRC, at irc.shadowworld.net, room #hvcomm.
Support 4hv.org!
Donate:
4hv.org is hosted on a dedicated server. Unfortunately, this server costs and we rely on the help of site members to keep 4hv.org running. Please consider donating. We will place your name on the thanks list and you'll be helping to keep 4hv.org alive and free for everyone. Members whose names appear in red bold have donated recently. Green bold denotes those who have recently donated to keep the server carbon neutral.
Special Thanks To:
Aaron Holmes
Aaron Wheeler
Adam Horden
Alan Scrimgeour
Andre
Andrew Haynes
Anonymous000
asabase
Austin Weil
barney
Barry
Bert Hickman
Bill Kukowski
Blitzorn
Brandon Paradelas
Bruce Bowling
BubeeMike
Byong Park
Cesiumsponge
Chris F.
Chris Hooper
Corey Worthington
Derek Woodroffe
Dalus
Dan Strother
Daniel Davis
Daniel Uhrenholt
datasheetarchive
Dave Billington
Dave Marshall
David F.
Dennis Rogers
drelectrix
Dr. John Gudenas
Dr. Spark
E.TexasTesla
eastvoltresearch
Eirik Taylor
Erik Dyakov
Erlend^SE
Finn Hammer
Firebug24k
GalliumMan
Gary Peterson
George Slade
GhostNull
Gordon Mcknight
Graham Armitage
Grant
GreySoul
Henry H
IamSmooth
In memory of Leo Powning
Jacob Cash
James Howells
James Pawson
Jeff Greenfield
Jeff Thomas
Jesse Frost
Jim Mitchell
jlr134
Joe Mastroianni
John Forcina
John Oberg
John Willcutt
Jon Newcomb
klugesmith
Leslie Wright
Lutz Hoffman
Mads Barnkob
Martin King
Mats Karlsson
Matt Gibson
Matthew Guidry
mbd
Michael D'Angelo
Mikkel
mileswaldron
mister_rf
Neil Foster
Nick de Smith
Nick Soroka
nicklenorp
Nik
Norman Stanley
Patrick Coleman
Paul Brodie
Paul Jordan
Paul Montgomery
Ped
Peter Krogen
Peter Terren
PhilGood
Richard Feldman
Robert Bush
Royce Bailey
Scott Fusare
Scott Newman
smiffy
Stella
Steven Busic
Steve Conner
Steve Jones
Steve Ward
Sulaiman
Thomas Coyle
Thomas A. Wallace
Thomas W
Timo
Torch
Ulf Jonsson
vasil
Vaxian
vladi mazzilli
wastehl
Weston
William Kim
William N.
William Stehl
Wesley Venis
The aforementioned have contributed financially to the continuing triumph of 4hv.org. They are deserving of my most heartfelt thanks.
Registered Member #160
Joined: Mon Feb 13 2006, 02:07AM
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posts: 938
Hi All, I'm building my first SSTC at long last. I was totally inspired by Mads Kaizer II coil and have followed his schematic which is in the most part Steve Wards with Reachings audiomod circuit. My problem so far is that the pots in the interupter circuit seem to get capacitively coupled to my hand. When I bring my hand near the 2M (2 1M in series) the frequency on my scope rises, and if I bring my hand near the 10k pot the frequency lowers. Anyone have any idea why this happens? Here is a photo of the board so far.
Registered Member #1232
Joined: Wed Jan 16 2008, 10:53PM
Location: Doon tha Toon!
Posts: 881
You could also try using a timing capacitor bigger than the, ermmm, NON-EXIXSTANT one in that schematic!!!
In short there should be a capacitor between pin 2 of the 555 timer and ground. This works with those resistors to set the operating frequency. Without a discrete capacitor there the operating frequency will be determined by the stray capacitance of this node of the circuit, and will be very high! It will also be heavily dependent on what is nearby, as you found out by waving your hand near it!
Try a capacitor around the 10nF value between pins 1 and 2 of the 555 timer and re-test the circuit. My bet is that the designer accidentally omitted it from the schematic :-o
Registered Member #1225
Joined: Sat Jan 12 2008, 01:24AM
Location: Beaumont, Texas, USA
Posts: 2253
As a sidenote, your name sounds kinda ironic. Let's fix Coronafix's corona machine. Just a weird obvious observation...
My sstc's did that too. A few times i even had an arc jump from me to the trimmers (i had to hold them by the encasing plastic, and my fingers where about 3mm away from the leads) which made the interrupt signal all weird, as you can imagine, and make an odd noise. It happened to me first when i started taking the video i have on youtube, and in the 5 or so minute run period, it happened twice.
The interference caused by sstc's are huge, and things build up a charge very fast, and very easy. I stood at my rooms door, one day, about 6 feet from the operating coil, and when people walked by i would draw a little arc. As you can imagine, pots do not like that
Just as raff suggested, shield it. An ATX PSU metal box is ideal, it has the mains connector, and sometimes a switch, as well as that little RF filter right on the plug, sometimes. Also, the box is already grounded. If you can't fit it, get some other box...
Registered Member #160
Joined: Mon Feb 13 2006, 02:07AM
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posts: 938
Brjiggitty!! I failed to notice that rather obvious omittance, lucky it's not my day job. Thanks Richie. Thanks Mads for the revised schematic too. I will be putting it in a metal case but I wasn't running the bridge yet so there couldn't be any interference. This should sort it out, but it will mess up my board layout now. No corona yet Arcs, if there was...I could fix it.
This site is powered by e107, which is released under the GNU GPL License. All work on this site, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License. By submitting any information to this site, you agree that anything submitted will be so licensed. Please read our Disclaimer and Policies page for information on your rights and responsibilities regarding this site.
Capacitive coupled potentiometers
