Old And New Sources For High Voltage

[Music] hi so high voltage experimentation is super cool of course and there used to be a couple of ways of getting a high voltage supply now there's loads of ways of getting a high voltage supply you can use a car ignition coil you can buy high voltage generators online you can build your own marks generator loads and loads of ways but a real favorite one was to scavenge this thing a flyback transformer from a television and make use of that the problem is of course televisions and cathode ray tube displays are disappearing you don't see them anymore in the same way that you used to with these things inside them but there is an alternative now you used to find that these things appeared in microwave ovens and they're a microwave oven transformer another way of getting good high voltage incidentally but they're starting to replace them with this thing a flyback transformer so we're going to have a look at scavenging those bits okay so you don't come across these kind of things very often these days once obviously they're absolutely everywhere because this is a cathode ray tube and they were used to see uh computer displays and televisions and just got tons of them these days were all into flat screens and lcds so these are a bit more rare but um i work near to a company called biotech or a computer company and sometimes when they have bits of old scrap and i show an interest they're quite happy to let me take someone or give me something and they gave me this so thank you very much biotech what we're going to do is we're going to take it to pieces now it's dead easy there's only four screws holding the back on and once you undo those four screws you can pull this apart there we go and have a look at the gubbins inside now this is the crt obviously this line here is the flyback transformer which is sitting down there and there's a ton of projects you can do with high voltage and flyback transformers and that's what we're actually after but obviously there's quite a few other bits here as well so i'm going to take this apart and lay out the parts okay so all i've done is pull apart the case and pull every plug out that's obviously the electronics board this is the power this is the control it's this bit we're after the flyback transformer so we're going to get that board out and desolder that and then any other components that i think are going to be worth rescuing there's a couple of very nice resistors there for instance which would be pretty cool but we can desolder that and get some parts off of that then we've got the cathode ray tube itself this bit is the electron gun and that's the control unit there we go and it just lifts off there's a screw in here that holds this collection on this is the control coils that's a ferrite right there and there's a whole load of ins um interference wireless wire i believe wrapped around everything so we're going to take this to pieces as well and see what bits that we've got out there the only interesting thing about this is this this is the cup that goes to the crt there's a hole right there in the glass and it comes from the flyback it's the main height voltage out and it hooks into that hole with this little hook all you do is fold back the cup stick a screwdriver in there and it leaves it leave it straight out okay let's get the rest of those bits off okay so we've desoldered the flyback transformer that's the bit that we want this bit which i thought was shielding actually is a de-gaussing coil so underneath all this is just a massive coil of copper wire so it's a lot of copper wire and it hasn't been resined or anything so that's really usable so we're going to save that and sometimes strip off the rest of this plastic aluminized plastic wind that up and we'll be able to use that copper again because like i said it's just a degassing coil this is the shielding coil right here which was held on by springs and loops and then goes to earth so that's the shielding coil right there then we've got the control unit now this is an rgb so you can um see that these actually control the electron gun which is right here so that fires electrons at the screen these field coils deflect that according to the signals that come from the from the computer and we get the picture on now there's a small bolt holding that there if you undo that then the field coils lift straight off and you can see the field coils right in there these actually have been resin together so they're a bit of a pain but right around there is another coil of wire very fine wire which is many meters long and that hasn't been resonant that's just been wound on so that can be recovered quite easily actually but this is the actual crt itself now the dangers of this because everybody loves to hear about the dangers of things don't they the glass used in this stuff is extraordinarily thick because it's a vacuum obviously and it is in a vacuum so it's a very thick glass it's in a vacuum and it's a lead glass the phosphors in here are also um supposed to be very dangerous so you're not supposed to breathe them in and it by itself it is actually a capacitor so it can be a very lethal charged capacitor this one i happen to know has been lying around for ages so that any chance of capacitance has now bled off if you're working with one that's been used you may want to take precautions against that because if you get that as a shock once you're probably never going to get it again and you certainly won't want to have that shock once it's going to hurt it's a high voltage so if it's a bit new i guess wear gloves if it's been kicking around for ages the chances of it actually storing anything are next to nothing but you do need to have a degree of care about such a thing it is also why these things are regulated for disposal because of the lead content in the glass so that's going to have to be properly disposed off we can't just be slung in the bin okay the more observant of you might notice i have some glasses and a hammer and a lack of concern for my own personal safety because what we're going to do is crack this open and have a look at the inside definitely not one that i would encourage you to try at home but let's put this somewhere where the flying glass won't go too far and smash it open okay this is definitely a one-time event [Laughter] oh sorry you have to laugh don't you because you get so many warnings about this don't do this because it'll implode and shower you with glass and you do that and to be honest it's disappointing isn't it [Music] okay that white ash you can see that's the phosphors there's the glass as you can see it's really really thick it's coated here this is kind of like a doping coating i believe and then we have a shield in there we're going to clean up a bit and have a bit of a better look at that okay that was sincerely disappointing i was expecting one tiny implosion at least you know glass shards flying everywhere from what they tell you that's what should happen but as you saw it was a bit of a damp squid but anyway we cracked it open here is the front screen and you can see the remains of the phosphors on it these are the bits that glow when they get hit and here is the mesh screen it's a separate uh that's the mesh interference screen bit damaged because of the glass and it's got a metal shield on it and there are the three electron guns so that's really all there is to a cathode ray tube of course we went through all of that to get this thing the flyback transformer and these used to be absolutely everywhere because with cathode ray tubes going out of fashion and we're now on lcds this is going to become much much rarer there's still a lot you can do with that in terms of high voltage so it's still an interesting piece if you get a piece and you've got some lying around there's loads of things you can do with it but they're getting harder and harder to find however all is not lost i was recently taking apart a microwave oven and heard the rumor that they were going to get rid of these things this is a microwave oven transformer it's responsible for stepping up mains voltage to about 2000 volts or so and this big block of iron is what you found in just about every microwave you ever come across but i heard a rumor they were getting rid of these things i'm going to replace it with electronics and i thought oh that's a sham and i took apart a philips inversion um microwave oven and instead of this there was this now all of the other goblins were in there the control circuits the super sorry the capacitor and this instead of the microwave oven transformer so i've cracked it off them and there's the inside of it and lo and behold right there is a flyback transformer so we're not going to be able to get these things from tvs but we are going to be able to get them from microwave ovens which is pretty awesome let me give you a close-up of that circuit board okay so there is the flyback transformer removed from the microwave oven now you can see that that's the input side right there and then the output side actually is here and here it was stunningly easy to remove actually and if you want to this is going to be super easy to do any modifications on because nothing is sealed so you can rewind this one into primer if you want you can rewind the secondaries if you want you can see on this side it goes through rectification here we've got a couple of high voltage diodes bit of smoothing a couple of capacitors there so that is an awesome thing and then compare it to what we used to use which is this thing here now you did have to go through a little bit to try and find out which was the ground pin and that was invariably the high voltage you used although there's high voltage available here they're a lower high voltage but still high voltage remember these drive the electron guns and the field coils and this is for the actual crt itself so that can still be got hold of and still is useful but it is on its way out however this is on its way in so as a flyback transformer it's fantastic to be able to just get that from a microwave oven and that will make it superbly easy to modify so i didn't actually pull apart a microwave because i've done a microwave oven pull apart video and all you'll find is that white box sitting in there so just follow that video and you'll find it my vote incidentally on high voltage that you can source yourself has got to be the microwave oven flyback transformer it's stunning in its simplicity it's really easy to see how to modify it and to see what's going on so fantastically awesome if you have some microwaves with those things in them grab them incidentally as these things are going out these are stunningly useful for no end of experiments so start hoarding them because you're not going to be able to find them soon but you will be able to find a ton of these things anyway i hope the video is interesting and thank you very much for watching

Channel: Robert Murray-Smith

Views: 9,968

Rating: 4.958549 out of 5

Keywords: high, voltage, flyback, transformer, upcycle, electronics, robert, fwg, murray-smith, recycle, upcycling, recycling, electricity, alternative, disruptive, engineering, technology, how to, diy, d-i-y, electric, project, science, home, workshop, equipment

Id: Y0pFlYMFFx0

Length: 11min 1sec (661 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 21 2020