All of us are probably wowed at Van de Graaff Generators, especially those lamp types. Well, here’s even more fun experiment where you can learn to make your own handheld Van de Graff Generator to send high voltages to metal things of your liking.
I don’t have much time to do DIYs lately but as soon as I get a chance I might be making one of these, perhaps make a giant version of it.
Also see the 120,000 volt Van de Graaff Generator you can make.
Hold the back of your hand near the bottle lid to cause brush discharge. This will look like lots of little lightning bolts. Draw a spark from the collector by moving one of your second knuckles towards the collector. If you’ve got your VDG working well you should be able to draw sparks a little over an inch long. Since dielectric breakdown of air is approximately 84kV/in (33kV/cm) this tells us the collector voltage is around 84 kV! Tape a needle to the the top of the collector and hold you’re hand over the tip of the needle. You should feel a cool breeze. This is called ionic wind.
video://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByGxX2C2FcI
