broken plasma ball

[st1f1]

yeah, i'm soooo clumsy. i broke it.. i was wondering if i could still use the circuit to power up a neon light tube or something like that? is it possible? it would be cool since it interacts with music..

 

[HarveyH42]

It's similar to a Tesla Coil, should light neon, fluorescent, an old clear light bulb should work in place of the globe...

 

[ccurtis]

Yes, you should have success by positioning a neon bulb near the high voltage electrode. You can pull sparks from the tip of a screwdriver, by holding the insulated handle, with the tip of the screwdriver near the electrode.

Careful though. The voltage won't kill you, but you could jump back from fright, trip and, heaven forbid, break your head on the floor.

 

[st1f1]

thank you for your answers
i've done tests with lightbulbs before it was broken yes, but now the globe is busted:
**broken link removed** now i was thinking i could clip the broken glass, but should the electrode stay in glass (or plastic, i don't really know what it is)? sould i put the neon lightbulb directly on the sphere (of the electrode), or put a wire on it, a grid of wires covering the sphere, or aluminum foil? also, does it matter how big the lightbulb would be, because i don't want to break that too, and i don't want it to be dimm..i saw somewhere that this coil produces a couple 1000V to 10000V...now how to calculate the energy? it works on 8V DC and 0.4A.. i saw an equation on how to calculate the energy using just the lenght of the sparks (globe radius), but that equation would be correct for normal air, not for argon(or something) in lower pressure... could you please help me some more?