DIY HACK - HOWTO make your own Jacobs Ladder version 2!
Wow, check out this Jacobs Ladder too!
This is how I used a neon sign transformer to create my own classic sci-fi prop the Jacobs Ladder. A Jacobs Ladder is nothing more than two vertical wires attached to a very high voltage. The wires which form the ladder are close together at the base but diverge as they go up. When switched on an electric arc forms at the base of the wires. The arc heats the air above it and in doing so forms an easier path for the electricity to take. The arc moves upwards continually heating the air above itself and rising to take the easier path until eventually the arc reaches the end of the wires and leaps into the air. Once free of the wires it dies but a new arc starts again at the bottom of the ladder. The arc itself moves with a very distinctive buzzing noise. These devices are most usually seen in old sci-fi and horror films and the houses of strange people.
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Loading ...DIY HACK - HOWTO make your own Jacobs Ladder!
Here’s a cool DIY on making your very own Jacobs Ladder. I always goto Fry’s with my friend Eric and find that they have this giant Jacobs Ladder that’d go off as soon as you were about to touch motherboards and whatnot. But this is great that now I know how it’s made.
The basic construction and principle of a Jacobs ladder is that a metal vee is formed from two bits of wire and a high voltage is applied across them. The electricity arcs across at the bottom of the vee where the electrodes are closest together. The air that the spark is passing through is ionised making it a preffered route for the arc, so when it heats up and begins to rise it drags the arc up the metal vee pulling it wider as it goes. In a correctly set up ladder the arc will travel all the way to the top where the wires have a sharp outward bend in them to pull the arc apart to the point that it extinguishes and the whole process starts again at the bottom of the vee. Here’s a picture of the base of my own Jacobs ladder showing the mounting of the wires.
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