Plasma tweeter

Hi,

I want to try some high voltage stuff and it was suggested to me that I should start with a plasma tweeter.

I've watched some on YouTube and done a bit of research but was wondering if someone could point me in a good starting direction. I was thinking of trying to control it somehow with PIC.

Does this circuit look like a good place to start? https://www.hvlabs.com/plasmasonic.html

I've done quite a bit with low voltage etc.

Thanks very much,

Froskoy.

I think the sound from a plazma tweeter is poor because of the transformer. It reduces low frequencies and high frequencies and might saturate a little producing distortion. The same or worse as a cheap vacuum tube amplifier.

audioguru said:

I think the sound from a plazma tweeter is poor because of the transformer. It reduces low frequencies and high frequencies and might saturate a little producing distortion. The same or worse as a very expensive vacuum tube amplifier.

Click to expand...

Corrected.

In the "good old days" a good vacuum tube amplifier used a high quality Williamson output transformer that had very low distortion and a very wide bandwidth.
The cheap ones had no deep bass and no sizzling highs but had plenty of distortion.

As you and I both know a cheaper good quality solid state amplifier will have lower distortion.

I got my start in high voltage with a plasma speaker too. I would recommend, however, that you don't use that schematic. It's more complicated than it needs to be. There's a decent instructable on building a plasma speaker on instructables.com. With either schematic, you'll want to makes sure that the power MOSFET is driven properly, or it will overheat. Try a MOSFET driver like the TC4229 or a MOSFET rated for higher current, or both.