Jacobs Ladder

168

03:14:34

Copied this from the interpest and thought I'd give that a virtual go!
Always up for suggestions on improving this and my other circuits.
I couldn't tell you if I got the transistor selection, settings, or even coil right.

It didn't go BANG! 💣😅

published 6 years ago

Molar

6 years ago

What the heck is it and what is it doing, Zurk?? 🤷‍♂️

Zurkster

6 years ago

The transformer represents an ignition coil, its supposed to be a drive circuit for a Jacobs ladder. Never made one, so I tried it here.

faceblast

6 years ago

not quite. the gate drive transistor isn't switching off. 555 output volts isn't high enough to switch it off. you can get around this by using output pin 3 to control the trigger instead, then drive the gate driver with the discharge pin instead.

faceblast

6 years ago

but this will not last long as transient current spikes that happen when the arc collapses are going to throw high voltages over the 555 and kill it quickly. you can try to protect it with a mosorb if you have one

fatcat2

6 years ago

You shouldn't depend on the inductive transient of thw transformer. Jacob's Ladder usually uses a high frequency low inductance transformer. The pnp transistor isn't being properly biased. Moroever, change the Vth of the EMOSFET.

Zurkster

6 years ago

Cheers for the input, @faceblast & @fatcat2 I see now, square peg, don't push it into round hole until fits... 😂👍

fatcat2

6 years ago

LOL! 😂😂😂

faceblast

6 years ago

I've done it with a simple multivibrator circuit driving an irf250 mosfet at around 16kHz on a 1970s style television line output transformer

fatcat2

6 years ago

A better MOSFET would be IRFP260 because it can handle more current. In fact, I had made such a flyblack driver circuit with them. The only drawback is that they are pretty expensive.

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