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Registered Member #1408
Joined: Fri Mar 21 2008, 03:49PM
Location: Oracle, AZ
Posts: 679
Antonio: thank you, I appreciate your time & input.
Niykon: I believe that is a SS NST from the pic and am unfamiliar with the usefulness of it's place in that application. There may be some protections in place that are at issue. Whats more it's input looks like AC mains wiring to me. Are you SURE it is built for low current/voltage input ???
Because of copper prices, SS NST's have been around for a bit and they may get messed up from moisture, impact, etc. The best thing to do is get a 10+ M ohm high wattage resister and make a little high voltage probe (use a damn cheap little analog meter) & see if it's even putting out energy.
Registered Member #2826
Joined: Sun Apr 25 2010, 08:21PM
Location:
Posts: 6
quicksilver wrote ...
Antonio: thank you, I appreciate your time & input.
Niykon: I believe that is a SS NST from the pic and am unfamiliar with the usefulness of it's place in that application. There may be some protections in place that are at issue. Whats more it's input looks like AC mains wiring to me. Are you SURE it is built for low current/voltage input ???
Because of copper prices, SS NST's have been around for a bit and they may get messed up from moisture, impact, etc. The best thing to do is get a 10+ M ohm high wattage resister and make a little high voltage probe (use a damn cheap little analog meter) & see if it's even putting out energy.
Im sure it is. The input is listed right on the side of it as 12vDC
Registered Member #1408
Joined: Fri Mar 21 2008, 03:49PM
Location: Oracle, AZ
Posts: 679
There was a company that made neon transformers for automobiles in addition to mains activated NST's. If it's NOT dysfunctional then the level of current may be too low. The quickest way to tell without opening it up is check if you're getting anything at all. If not then see if you CAN open it and start tracing from the input leads to the first component they hit (perhaps a smoothing cap(s)). But you have a 3 lead input; assuming the blk & red are the DC the white lead may be a switching element. In copy machine (& similar) there are HV units which demand the integration of the switching lead into the input for them to light up with HV.
Registered Member #195
Joined: Fri Feb 17 2006, 08:27PM
Location: Berkeley, ca.
Posts: 1111
Niykon the best circuit for flybacks is a Mazzilli circuit. try Uzzor web page for the circuit
the moast important part is the pollypropalene cap ,say 1-2 uf and fast diodes. Try 1n5408's to try it because they are common and pausibly fast enough. You can parallel flybacks if they are exactly the same. I've not found any flyback circuit that is sapirior.
Registered Member #1408
Joined: Fri Mar 21 2008, 03:49PM
Location: Oracle, AZ
Posts: 679
Niykon: Before you chuck the ss NST try connecting the Blk & Wht lead together, using that as DC negative and red DC positive and then see if she lights up.
Registered Member #2614
Joined: Sat Jan 09 2010, 08:57AM
Location: Bucharest, Romania
Posts: 26
My experience is that self-oscillating drivers such as the single 2N3055 one aren't appropriate for this application.
The 555 driver is decent enough so try that. Look for "Eirik's 555 driver basic", i did that one and it gave good results. It can sustain an arc of about 3cm and spark to 7cm with a flyback from a 17" monitor, 4 turns primary and an IRF630 mosfet. I have run it up to 1 hour continuously and i haven't fried the transistor yet, but it's on a BIG heatsink (the heatsink came from the monitor too, it was used to cool all the power transistors).
Btw the reason why the spark distance is quite a bit longer than the arc is because the monitor flyback is half-wave rectified internally so you're getting quite a bit of DC. To sustain an arc you need AC. I wanted to make a plasma tweeter but with input to pin 5 of the 555 sound was very low and i was too lazy to figure out how to make a separate amp to drive it, so for now i have abandoned the experiment. It does an awesome job at lighting up old fluorescent tubes though.
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Simple flyback driver Help please!
