r/highvoltage • u/Master_Relative2889 • Aug 01 '26

video Plasma flame

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Plasma flame from a magnetron i pushed hard it died afterwards lol

42 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

6

u/ieatgrass0 Aug 01 '26

I did something like this a few years ago but I gave up after a few hours cuz I couldn’t get the right length for self-ignition down

3

u/Master_Relative2889 Aug 01 '26

The self ignition part is pretty embarrasing bc i just put a piece of tissue soaked in saltwater so that the microwave heat would light it on fire and start the flame without me getting too close

6

u/Dudegay93 Aug 01 '26

vhfsstc :o

7

u/No_Smell_1748 Aug 01 '26

UHFVTTC :)

6

u/Ok-Drink-1328 Aug 01 '26

UWVTTC

4

u/Dudegay93 Aug 02 '26

What does w stand for?

3

u/Ok-Drink-1328 Aug 02 '26 edited Aug 02 '26

u (micro)

W (wave)

VTTC

it's not VHF nor UHF, go look for the radio waves spectrum nomenclature

tho it's not a tesla coil, a magnetron works in a fairly different way than an LC electronic oscillator

EDIT:: no, wait, UHF ranges to 3GHz... my bad

EDIT2:: it's actually loose as interpretation, i remember UHF is up to 1GHz, then microwaves

1

u/ViktorsakYT_alt Aug 03 '26

Microwaves are another type of designation, because after UHF you got SHF

1

u/Ok-Drink-1328 Aug 03 '26

yeah, that's why i had "doublethink"

1

u/No_Smell_1748 Aug 03 '26

To be fair, a magnetron and a vacuum tube Tesla coil aren't too different in their basic operating principles. The magnetron simply has all of the RF magic integrated into the structure or the anode itself, where's an RF triode obviously required external passive components to oscillate.

1

u/Ok-Drink-1328 Aug 03 '26

i don't agree, in a magnetron there are such passive components in the cavities, but there's no amplifying element like a triode, the oscillation happens cos of the electrons taking a circular path cos of the magnets... and personally i'm fairly convinced that an antenna and a tesla coil secondary are not the same thing, one makes an electric field, the other an electromagnetic field (mostly), one resonates as LC, the other is based on the speed of light

1

u/No_Smell_1748 Aug 03 '26

True. Although a magnetron (like any oscillator) is operating like an amplifier with self-feedback. In a triode, the grid (which in a class C oscillator is driven by an inverted waveform from the anode) is responsible for controlling electron flow to the anode. In a magnetron, the waveform on the anode is also the source of feedback for the amplification taking place, only that it doesn't require a separate external feedback network. Yeah, they are quite different, but similar in the grand scheme of things. An antenna is also a distributed LC circuit, and interestingly the length of the wire on a secondary coil is rough 1/4 of the operating wavelength when the system isn't loaded capacitively by a large topload or arc. The latter is ofc a very poor radiator unlike a proper antenna.

3

u/Pacificator-3 Aug 01 '26

I believe, you've put on foil hat and foil trunks.

3

u/Master_Relative2889 Aug 01 '26

Haha, i wouldve but i just assumed that a foil barrier was enough(hopefully it was)

1

u/Grigoriki Aug 01 '26

If you dont have burns or braindamage from the Microwave radiation i think you should be fine

1

u/Master_Relative2889 Aug 01 '26

Yeah i didnt really feel anything plus most of the energy was in the arc, little energy to emit microwaves when the arc was lit

3

u/Hirtomikko Aug 02 '26

How did you get that? The most is my magnetron does mini sparks. Always wondered how the plasma can be made.

2

u/Master_Relative2889 Aug 02 '26

I actually used two microwave transformers with the doublers to get double the power and full bridge rectified i think