Electric Glove.

[HIMNL9]

^ careful with TV flybacks ..... we're speaking about something that you must WEAR on your hand, and that can fail, remember .....

Much better to use a very low current system, just in case of accidents

 

[Wolfman29]

Yeah - Gonna stick a 1Mohm resistor on one of the leads, just to be sure

 

[joeyss]

This sounds much more dangerous than a laser pointer. I urge you to take it slow and test it with a low voltage first. If something goes wrong you're screwed as hell.

 

[Wolfman29]

I know. It's all part of my plan to make an Iron Man suit

 

[Benm]

@wolf stand rule o thumb is 1KV/cm or so (I think) and as for an arc from finger tip to tip with fingers spread out... I believe thats 30-50KV.

Its quite a bit more than that really. A typical figure for air breakdown between two smooth electrodes (typically spheres) is 1 kV/mm, although it depends on humidity as well.

This is what is required to start the spark, once the ionized channel is formed much less voltage is needed to maintain it, something you can see very well in a jacobs ladder.

The breakdown voltage may be a lot lower if you design the electrodes to cause breakdown, like two sharp points facing eachother. In such a case 1 kV may span 1 cm under the right conditions, though not very reliably.

 

[Wolfman29]

Hmm. Now, that's interesting... may mean that I may be able to much more easily do this (won't even need a CW multiplier to do it, just the flyback transformer).

The idea is that I will have a button on one of the gloves that will turn the transformer on. It will stay on (making a noise and a light, of course, letting me know that it's still on), and I will turn it "on or off" by either pressing that button (actually off) or by just making my fingers move too far apart for the arc to jump between it.... That way, 35kV could probably span as far as my forefinger and thumb could span, right? Assuming they start out close, of course.

That idea was a second idea, after I realized my original idea may not work. My original idea is that I would have a button on my thumb that I would press with my forefinger, and that button would be a push-button to activate the arc. That way, I press my thumb and forefinger together, an arc stars there (between the electrode and my forefinger, the button is NOT touching the electrode, but near it [the plastic should isolate it, yes?]), which I then draw apart. Either way, if I did either idea, I could use only 35kV instead of then 100 or so kV necessary to span the 10cm max distance I would want it to go, right?

Thanks for all your help, guys I am also getting the help from the fellas over on 4hv.org.

 

[Seoul_lasers]

Hmm. Now, that's interesting... may mean that I may be able to much more easily do this (won't even need a CW multiplier to do it, just the flyback transformer).

The idea is that I will have a button on one of the gloves that will turn the transformer on. It will stay on (making a noise and a light, of course, letting me know that it's still on), and I will turn it "on or off" by either pressing that button (actually off) or by just making my fingers move too far apart for the arc to jump between it.... That way, 35kV could probably span as far as my forefinger and thumb could span, right? Assuming they start out close, of course.

That idea was a second idea, after I realized my original idea may not work. My original idea is that I would have a button on my thumb that I would press with my forefinger, and that button would be a push-button to activate the arc. That way, I press my thumb and forefinger together, an arc stars there (between the electrode and my forefinger, the button is NOT touching the electrode, but near it [the plastic should isolate it, yes?]), which I then draw apart. Either way, if I did either idea, I could use only 35kV instead of then 100 or so kV necessary to span the 10cm max distance I would want it to go, right?

Thanks for all your help, guys I am also getting the help from the fellas over on 4hv.org.

I think 100KV is a bit of a pipe dream. 1) There are NOT many materials that will withstand 100KV for a decent amount of time. Sure you can make a glove that will protect you from that high a voltage. However, at beyond 40KV air breaks down extremely fast into 03 and NO3 and this will oxidize the dielectric. Tazers do not work on continuous discharge, rather they are 1/20 - 1/10 sec pulsed high current discharge from a 60Kv capacitor bank. There isn't the time to create huge amounts of Ozone when this occurs.
I would suggest researching how dangerous this project really is before attempting it.
Have you an idea of how difficult it is to do anything if you're are shocked with a tazer?
It is impossible and with a device like this attached to your hand, if anything should go wrong it would/could very likely kill you!!

 

[Wolfman29]

Hmm, so what you're saying is that the ozone produced by the arc would essentially corrode the gloves I would be wearing, right?

Yeah, I am still thinking about the gloves - what kind of gloves would be necessary? In this case, because I will also be working with conflagration on the other hand, high heat/electrical insulation would be required anyway, and I wouldn't mind spending a pretty penny on these. However, if these gloves would then corrode, making them dangerous, that could be a problem.

And yes, I realize how dangerous this is - that's why, before any hands are going into any gloves, there is going to be lots and LOTS of testing.

But the issue remains - if oxidation would be extraordinarily rapid due to ozone, what kind of materials would NOT be damaged by the ozone? After all, it is a chemical reaction, there isn't a single chemical that reacts with every other chemical, ozone included. So, there has to be some sort of material that would protect me from the ozone and therefore the high voltage.

For instance, here is a pair of gloves advertised to resist ozone corrosion: Butyl Smooth Finish Gloves. That, on top of a pair of gloves designed to resist upwards of 40kV or so, should work, no?

 

[Benm]

That way, 35kV could probably span as far as my forefinger and thumb could span, right? Assuming they start out close, of course.

I'm not sure what the maximum distance is you can maintain a 35 kV spark, but i'm sure it is at least several centimeters under normal conditions. Iginiting the spark would require pinching your fingers and probably pointy electrodes, but once the spark is there, it can be stretched to many times its iginition distance.

I seriously doubt doing this using a glove would be a good/safe idea at all, but the science definitely supports the idea of starting with something like a 1 cm spark and streching that out slowly to 5 or 10 cm.

 

[Wolfman29]

Yeah - obviously this will only be used under the safest of conditions. And, after I get the FBT that I ordered and get it up and running, I will further analyze exactly how safe it is for me to be doing this.

That is, I will draw an arc for an extended period of time and place some of the materials I will be wearing very near it to see what happens - I will probably even put some sort of small fuse inside a sample of the material I will be wearing to see if any power gets through the protective outer coating.

EDIT: I just had an idea though... what if I attached a grounding wire rather close to where the arc will be that will lead to the virtual ground found in the backpack power unit? That way, if any electricity *does* manage to get through the protective outer layer, it will just take the path of least resistance - an actual wire leading to the inside of my backpack (with a fuse at the end of it).

 

[Kmor2004]

Yeah - obviously this will only be used under the safest of conditions.

^^^^ That my good sir is an oximoron (I think) since HIgh voltage is not safe and playing with it isn't either, yet wearing something that will emit HV is definetly not safe.

As for the ground wire, not really donna do too much good, since both the negative and positive of the HV will be coming out of the FBT.

 

[Wolfman29]

Not an oxymoron! An oxymoron would be like saying, "I am going to play with my low-voltage FBT" or something. I'm just stating that I am going to use it safely - the same way someone with a Tesla coil uses it safely.

Regarding the ground wire... I don't understand - isn't the problem that the HV may arc to my skin instead of the ground elctrode, which would hurt me? Thus, if I had ground wire UNDER the glove, wouldn't it just arc to that instead of my skin? It would hurt a lot (the heat and stuff) but it wouldn't kill me.

 

[Benm]

Something like coating the interior of the gloves with a conductive layer and connecting that to ground could certainly help. It would have to cover the entire inside of the glove though - if it arcs in, it will jump to closest possible point which could be unprotected.

If you just ran a wire, it could arc into your finger, and out the other side into that wire, resulting in 2 contact burns. Somehow i think doing this in reality will cost you a finger or two, but i suppose thats still 'safer' than being electrocuted from fingertip to backpack

 

[Wolfman29]

Yeah - I am used to getting burns (I have tons of 'em from this hobby XD), but I am just looking for a way to prevent myself from getting electrocuted ^_^

 

[Benm]

That figures... i guess most people would only touch voltages like that with a 2 foot plastic pole

 

[Wolfman29]

Hahaha, yeah. I'm covered in burns from my soldering iron and my lasers, so burns don't really bug me. They hurt for a while, then they scar, then they are better.