How To Stop Zeus From Toasting Your Pi

August 22, 2025 by Heidi Ulrich 18 Comments

If you’ve ever lost gear to lightning or power spikes, you know what a pain they are. Out in rural Arkansas, where [vinthewrench] lives, the grid is more chaos than comfort – especially when storms hit. So, he dug into the problem after watching a cheap AC-DC module quite literally melt down. The full story, as always, begins with the power company’s helpful reclosers: lightning-induced surges, and grid switching transients. The result though: toasted boards, shorted transformers, and one very dead Raspberry Pi. [vinthewrench] wrote it all up – with decent warnings ahead. Take heed and don’t venture into things that could put your life in danger.

Back to the story. Standard surge suppressors? Forget it. Metal-oxide varistor (MOV)-based strips are fine for office laptops, but rural storms laugh at their 600 J limits. While effective and commonly used, MOVs are “self-sacrificing” and degrade over time with each surge event.

[vinthewrench] wanted something sturdier. Enter ZeusFilter 1.0 – a line-voltage filter stitched together from real parts: a slow-blow fuse, inrush-limiting thermistor, three-electrode gas discharge tube for lightning-class hits, beefy MOVs for mid-sized spikes, common-mode choke to kill EMI chatter, and safety caps to bleed off what’s left. Grounding done right, of course. The whole thing lives on a single-layer PCB, destined to sit upstream of a hardened PSU.

As one of his readers pointed out, though, spikes don’t always stop at the input. Sudden cut-offs on the primary can still throw nasty pulses into the secondary, especially with bargain-bin transformers and ‘mystery’ regulators. The reader reminded that counterfeit 7805s are infamous for failing short, dumping raw input into a supposedly safe 5 V rail. [vinthewrench] acknowledged this too, recalling how collapsing fields don’t just vanish politely – Lenz makes sure they kick back hard. And yes, when cheap silicon fails, it fails ugly: straight smoke-release mode.

In conclusion, we’re not particularly asking you to try this at home if you lack the proper knowledge. But if you have a high-voltage addiction, this home research is a good start to expand your knowledge of what is, in theory, possible.

A photo for a motor and a meter on a bench.

Let’s Brief You On Recent Developments For Electrostatic Motors

August 20, 2025 by John Elliot V 28 Comments

Over on his YouTube channel [Ryan Inis] has a video about how electrostatic motors are breaking all the rules.

He explains that these days most motors are electromagnetic but suggests that may be changing as the age-old principles of electrostatics are being explored again, particularly due to the limited supply of rare-earth magnets and other materials (such as copper and steel) which are used in many electromagnetic motors.

[Ryan] says that new electrostatic motors could be the answer for highly efficient and economical motors. Conventional electromagnetic motors pass current through copper windings which create magnetic fields which are forces which can turn a rotor. The rotor generally has permanent magnets attached which are moved by the changing magnetic forces. These electromagnetic motors typically use low voltage and high current.

Electrostatic alternatives are actually an older design, dating back to the 1740s with the work of Benjamin Franklin and Andrew Gordon. These electrostatic motors generate motion through the attraction and repulsion of high voltage electric charges and demand lower current than electromagnetic motors. The high voltages involved create practical problems for engineers who need to harness this energy safely without leading to shocks or sparks or such.

[Ryan] goes on to discuss particular electrostatic motor designs and how they can deliver higher torque with lower energy losses due to friction and heat making them desirable for various applications, particularly industrial applications which demand low speed and high torque. He explains the function of the rotor and stator and says that these types of motors use 90% less copper than their electromagnetic alternatives, also no electrical steel and no permanent magnets.

For more coverage on electrostatic motors check out Electrostatic Motors Are Making A Comeback.

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A photo of a the power supply, distribution board, and primary and secondary windings on a bench top.

Bench-Top Wireless Power Transmission

August 14, 2025 by John Elliot V 8 Comments

[mircemk] has been working on wireless power transmission. Using a Class-E Tesla coil with 12 turns on the primary and 8 turns on the secondary and a 12 volt input he can send a few milliwatts to power an LED over a distance of more than 40 centimeters or power a 10 watt bulb over a distance of about 10 centimeters. With the DC input set at 24 volts the apparatus can deliver 5 watts over a distance of a few centimeters and a light is still visible after separating the primary and secondary coils by more than 30 centimeters.

There are many types of Tesla coil and we can’t go into the details here but they include Spark-Gap Tesla Coils (SGTC) and Solid-State Tesla Coils (SSTC), among others. The Class-E coil demonstrated in this project is a type of SSTC which in general is more efficient than an SGTC alternative.

Please bear in mind that while it is perfectly safe to watch a YouTube video of a person demonstrating a functional Tesla coil, building your own is hazardous and probably not a good idea unless you really understand what you’re doing! Particularly high voltages can be involved and EMI/RFI emissions can violate regulations. You can damage your body with RF burns while not feeling any pain, and without even knowing that it’s happening.

If you’d like to read more about wireless power transmission it is certainly a topic we’ve covered here at Hackaday in the past, you might like to check out Wireless Power Makes For Cable-Free Desk or Transmitting Wireless Power Over Longer Distances.

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Neon Bulbs? They’re A Gas!

August 11, 2025 by Al Williams 39 Comments

When you think of neon, you might think of neon signs or the tenth element, a noble gas. But there was a time when neon bulbs like the venerable NE-2 were the 555 of their day, with a seemingly endless number of clever circuits. What made this little device so versatile? And why do we see so few of them today?

Neon’s brilliant glow was noted when William Ramsay and Morris Travers discovered it in 1898. It would be 1910 before a practical lighting device using neon appeared. It was 1915 when the developer, Georges Claude, of Air Liquide fame, received a patent on the unique electrodes suitable for lighting and, thus, had a monopoly on the technology he sold through his company Claude Neon Lights.

However, Daniel Moore in 1917 developed a different kind of neon bulb while working for General Electric. These bulbs used coronal discharge to produce a red glow or, with argon, a blue glow. This was different enough to earn another patent, and neon bulbs found use primarily as indicator lamps before the advent of the LED. However, it would also find many other uses.

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Sparks Fly: Building A 330 KV Supply From A PC PSU

August 7, 2025 by Matt Varian 30 Comments

If you’re hunting for a bench power supply, you’ll quickly notice options dry up above 48 V or so, and you definitely won’t find a 330 kV supply on the shelf at your local electronics shop. But with just a few parts, [Mircemk] has crafted a high-voltage source from a modified PC power supply that delivers electrifying results.

The sparks arcing over a foot of thin air are a dead giveaway, but let’s be clear: this project is not for beginners. High voltage — defined as around 1,000 V and up, with this project hitting 350 times that — carries risks of severe injury or death. Only tackle it if you fully understand the dangers and take precautions like proper insulation and never working alone.

This project showcases a Cockcroft-Walton voltage multiplier, a clever setup using diodes and capacitors to step up voltage. The capacitors charge and discharge in an alternating pattern, doubling the voltage after each diode pair. [Mircemk] uses 3 mm thick Plexiglas as an insulator, providing both structure and electrical isolation for the diode-capacitor cascade.

To achieve the 330,000 V output, [Mircemk] starts by modifying a standard PC ATX power supply, removing the Schottky diodes from the secondary winding’s output to produce a roughly 15 V square wave. This feeds into another transformer, boosting the voltage before it enters the Cockcroft-Walton multiplier. At first glance, the multiplier’s sides look identical, but their opposite polarities create a massive potential difference across the spark gap.

[Mircemk]’s benchtop exploration into high-voltage territory is a shocking success. If this project lights up your curiosity, dive into our other high-voltage adventures, like DIY Tesla coils or plasma speakers, for more electrifying inspiration.

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A plywood box with a clear plastic front is shown. Three needle gauges are visible on the front of the box, as well as a digital display, several switches, and some indicator lights. At the right of the box, a short copper tube extends from the box.

Building An X-Ray Crystallography Machine

July 7, 2025 by Aaron Beckendorf 11 Comments

X-ray crystallography, like mass spectroscopy and nuclear spectroscopy, is an extremely useful material characterization technique that is unfortunately hard for amateurs to perform. The physical operation isn’t too complicated, however, and as [Farben-X] shows, it’s entirely possible to build an X-ray diffractometer if you’re willing to deal with high voltages, ancient X-ray tubes, and soft X-rays.

[Farben-X] based his diffractometer around an old Soviet BSV-29 structural analysis X-ray tube, which emits X-rays through four beryllium windows. Two ZVS drivers power the tube: one to drive the electron gun’s filament, and one to feed a flyback transformer and Cockroft-Walton voltage multiplier which generate a potential across the tube. The most important part of the imaging system is the X-ray collimator, which [Farben-X] made out of a lead disk with a copper tube mounted in it. A 3D printer nozzle screws into each end of the tube, creating a very narrow path for X-rays, and thus a thin, mostly collimated beam.

To get good diffraction patterns from a crystal, it needed to be a single crystal, and to actually let the X-ray beam pass through, it needed to be a thin crystal. For this, [Farben-X] selected a sodium chloride crystal, a menthol crystal, and a thin sheet of mica. To grow large salt crystals, he used solvent vapor diffusion, which slowly dissolves a suitable solvent vapor in a salt solution, which decreases the salt’s solubility, leading to very slow, fine crystal growth. Afterwards, he redissolved portions of the resulting crystal to make it thinner.

The diffraction pattern generated by a sodium chloride crystal. A slide is shown with a dark black dot in the middle, surrounded by fainter dots. — The diffraction pattern generated by a sodium chloride crystal.

For the actual experiment, [Farben-X] passed the X-ray beam through the crystals, then recorded the diffraction patterns formed on a slide of X-ray sensitive film. This created a pattern of dots around the central beam, indicating diffracted beams. The mathematics for reverse-engineering the crystal structure from this is rather complicated, and [Farben-X] hadn’t gotten to it yet, but it should be possible.

We would recommend a great deal of caution to anyone considering replicating this – a few clips of X-rays inducing flashes in the camera sensor made us particularly concerned – but we do have to admire any hack that coaxed such impressive results out of such a rudimentary setup. If you’re interested in further reading, we’ve covered the basics of X-ray crystallography before. We’ve also seen a few X-ray machines.

Generating Plasma With A Hand-Cranked Generator

June 10, 2025 by Maya Posch 12 Comments

Everyone loves to play with electricity and plasma, and [Hyperspace Pirate] is no exception. Inspired by a couple of 40×20 N52 neodymium magnets he had kicking around, he decided to put together a hand-cranked generator and use it to generate plasma with. Because that’s the kind of fun afternoon projects that enrich our lives, and who doesn’t want some Premium Fire™ to enrich their lives?

The generator itself is mostly 3D printed, with the magnets producing current in eight copper coils as they spin past. Courtesy of the 4.5:1 gear on the crank side, it actually spins at over 1,000 RPM with fairly low effort when unloaded, albeit due to the omission of iron cores in the coils. This due to otherwise the very strong magnets likely cogging the generator to the point where starting to turn it by hand would become practically impossible.

Despite this, the generator produces over a kilovolt with the 14,700 turns of 38 AWG copper wire, which is enough for the voltage multiplier and electrodes in the vacuum chamber, which were laid out as follows:

Circuit for the plasma-generating circuit with a vacuum chamber & hand-cranked generator. (Credit: Hyperspace Pirate, YouTube)

Some of our esteemed readers may be reminded of arc lighters which are all the rage these days, and this is basically the hand-cranked, up-scaled version of that. Aside from the benefits of having a portable super-arc lighter that doesn’t require batteries, the generator part could be useful in general for survival situations. Outside of a vacuum chamber the voltage required to ionize the air becomes higher, but since you generally don’t need a multi-centimeter arc to ignite some tinder, this contraption should be more than sufficient to light things on fire, as well as any stray neon signs you may come across.

If you’re looking for an easier way to provide some high-voltage excitement, automotive ignition coils can be pushed into service with little more than a 555 timer, and if you can get your hands on a flyback transformer from a CRT, firing them up is even easier.

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