By Admin (Admin) on Saturday, June 23, 2001 - 01:01 pm: Edit

Here are the instructions for making your own.

Materials:
7500V neon transformer,
some scrap (but new) alum. window screen,
an 8' 18/3 cord with a male plug,
some wood screws,
a 3 1/2" X 5" piece of glass from a cheapo photo frame,
Total cost, about $25.

Mount the transformer using its base mounts to a 4" X 17" X 3/4" plywood board, attached the 18/3 wire cord to the primary side of the transformer including the ground wire for safety.

Cut two screens about 3/8" smaller than the outside dimensions of the glass. Then fold one corner over, punch a small hole with an ice pick through the corner and thread some wire through the hole so it would be easy to solder - the physical contact between the stripped wire coming from the secondary side of the transformer thru the hole must be good. Solder the wire leads to the corner of the precut screens using a little flux for prepping, a heavy duty solder iron, and regular flux core electronic solder. Be sure the wire is twisted tightly so that a positive solder connection can be made. After the wires are affixed to the screens, mount them to the plate glass, one on each side, using a hot glue gun with about a drop at each corner of the screen. The wire gauge from the secondary side to the screen should be 16 or better.

Mount the plate glass (using the glue gun) in a groove (which is cut with a table saw, or whatever) directly in front of the mounted transformer, and connected the screen wire leads to the secondary side of the transformer.

As an aside, there is a problem with the glue sticking to the glass initially, so you can chemically frosted off the "gloss" by using etching solution found at hobby stores. You should do this or the vibration from the plates will be such that the glue will not hold. Also, found that "Goop" glue with a hot glue gun worked the best after frosting the glass. Silicon cement should also work well.

Ozone is not good to breath but only has a half life of 30 mins. So give yourself 30 from shutting it off before you are in the room alot