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Any way to make a positive ion generator ?

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Nostrafus

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I know you can make negative ion generators, but I wanted to know if you could make positive ion generators.

The idea comes from a joke I made, I told my brother that I could make just about anything, and he told me that he wanted to be able to shoot lightning.

So I told him I'd get a fully insulated suit with a tesla coil mounted on a backpack, and run a connector from the toroid to a toroid mounted on the bottom of his hand, and have the coil have a switch mounted on his thumb.

So he laughed, and I said I wasn't joking, I'd do it... but he said he wanted to be able to make lightning fall from the sky, like his smite cleric on Dark Age of Camelot, so I told him, sure I could do that.

So all I have to do is figure out how to generate large amounts of positive ions in one area, and it'll instigate a lightning bolt to hit the generator (making sure the generator itself is totally insulated.)
 
The only problem is, I think it's kinda impossible, because If I remember correctly positive ions can only be created by friction between molecules.
 
The circuit as presented is designed to generate negative
ions. However, by simply reversing all the diodes, D1 to
D30, in the ladder you automatically make it into a positive
ion generator.

**broken link removed**

That about like what you want? Considering that they are saying there is a health benefit I don't see how it could create enough ions to cause a lightning bolt.... if it does though.... MAKE A VIDEO!!!!! :D
 
Heh... the earth provides most of the positive ions, by increasing the number of positive ions in an area, you can increase the likelyhood of a lightning strike, it won't cause one, but it helps.

All I need to do is build one and wait for a thunderstorm.

I mean if I really wanted a lightning bolt to hit a specific area, I'd just get a 50 foot steel pole and stick it into the ground.

But I wanted to make something a bit more portable.
 
hmmm... it seems to be running off mains, I was hoping to find something portable... I guess I could add a 12v->110v inverter.
 
Okay, also, if I wanted this particular unit to produce a large number of positive ions, could I also increase the number of diodes/caps to say, 100+ using triple stacked pcb to make it more compact.
 
have you thouoght that if you want to make it portable you have to insulate the components really well. or the lightning will just be inside your generator.

about the tesla coil....i saw a guy on tv that build a 250000 W(that is how much power is used, and i don't rememner how many volts it gave) tesla coid, dressend in a metel suit and went under the coil......
it was really nice to see him and a few meters of sparks....

now, back to what you want to do.
i don't think that it is really possible, especially if you want to make it portable. though it will be nice. if you want to use caps and diodes to multiply the voltage, imagine the size of them. and some diodea for 10000V or more .......wow......really BIG
 
Well by portable I mean under 12"Hx6"Lx6"D, So I've got plenty of space to work with.

Besides I don't want to carry 10KV I just want it to carry 1KV

Now a question, how could I go about making this project produce more than normal amounts of positive ions, could I just use larger electrodes, perhaps a flagpole, or a ladder ?

Or would it need to carry a higher voltage ?

I have no idea how these things work, I just know they do, and have a basic idea of what they do.

Besides I don't really want to make the thing survive the bolt, I just want to make sure I don't get hit by the current when I test it, I wouldn't want to be the one to have to go fetch the thing if it was still turned on. :D
 
timed or remote turn off

I would set it up using a timer for on and off such that if it survives or isn't struck it would turn itself off before going to get it. Or you could do it by remote control. You could probably use some cheap RC from rat shack or some thing like that. Peronally I would go with the timer. that way there is no interferance from other sources.
good luck and let us know how it goes.
 
Well if I wanted to I could also go with a super high voltage fuse used for tokamak reactors (Put off about equal energy as a single bolt of lightning)

But Since it runs on AC, I'd have to put one (maybe 2+) on each side of the electrode since there's no way to tell which direction the energy will go once it hits them.
 
Fat chance of attracting any lightning with any amount of ions you can generate short of owning your own power station.

"Normal" ion generators (that produce negative ions) produce them via a voltage usually around 10,000 volts. To increase the amount of ions produced the amperage is increased, not the voltage. If you increase the voltage beyond say 14,000 volts then you start to produce too much ozone and not enough ions instead. Now turn all that around to positive ions and I'm not sure what you'd get (not ozone, but...?). Anyway, amperage is the key to higher volume ion production.

If your primary goal is to attract lightning, I'd forget the ion thing and just charge a flag pole with as high a voltage charge as you can sustain, probably with something like a tesla coil or other traditional high-voltage generator. How you'd sustain the charge would be the hardest thing since the flag pole would be naturally grounded.

I saw a TV show once where some scientists attracted lightning by shooting a model rocket into a storm trailing a spool of wire behind it. They had to try several times but were able to do it. Note that the professionals were scared enough of the lightning that they triggered the rocket from a 1/4 mile away via compressed air so there would be no way the charge could get to them! :shock:
 
Well I'm not that afraid of lightning, I've almost been hit 2x before (within 100 feet of where it touched down) one was across the street from me about 100 feet away, and one was about 40 feet away, that one nearly blinded and deafened me since I was knocked off my feet from the shockwave, and couldn't see for about a minute or two from the intense flash.

The second one would have killed me, because it hit right where I would have been had I left shelter about 10 seconds earlier when I wanted to, I got caught in a heavy storm and took refuge in a field inside a concrete sewer drain that was turned on it's side and hadn't been installed yet.

On another note, this was one of the things that made me paranoid for a while, because after that I firmly believed that god was out to kill me (That was when I still believed in the invisible man :D)
 
uv lasers

they have been doing alot with uv lasers recently. I heard that cops are going to start to carry a new kind of stun gun that they can use from a distance and are in no way connected to the victim. by using the uv laser to ionize the air and in that pathway be able to conduct electricity. I have been looking for uv lasers and they are kinda pricey but if you can afford one it would definately be worth it to give it a try.
 
look up "nitrogen laser" on the net. They're not terribly difficult to make, and give well over a megawatt in the ultraviolet :twisted:
 
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