Handheld Plasma Wand

another 18 minutes of lookout discarded because it relied on the page to be active…. atleast now I got 26 minutes

I had an inspiration of using this handheld laser’s structure as my plasma wand’s structure, it’s got the batteries on the handle ensuring weight balance and all of the circuitry on the front, aswell as the bottom there for visual balance and charging.

I have made it this far only layouting the battery pack, the toroid cores, and the capacitors which I found to be quite bulky, I’m not sure how I’m gonna lay the capacitors out, or I could use less capacitors?

That would decrease power by a lot, so I guess I’m going to keep the 3 parallel capacitors.

I’m also trying to make the wand as comfortable to grip as possible so making it thin enough to wrap your fingers around them and thick enough for components clearance.

I have locked in my capacitor, toroid, and have changed electrode selection

1. Capacitor:
   From:
   MKP 0.47uf (wrong selection because I found out that this capacitor has a code X2 capacitor which makes it unable to be used in a high pulse current application like this zvs drvier) .
   To now:
   CBB81 0.1nf x 3 (chinese code for MKP capacitor rated for much higher voltage spike and handles pulse currents better).

2, Inductor choke:
From:
KS130060A: Bulky, weird, overpowered, takes too much space
power smd inductors: unavailable, weak
To Now:
4x T90-26 toroid core, stacked, and hand-winded, handles current adequately, slim (fits into the wand shape)

1. Electrode:
   I was totally unsure of electrodes that can:

• handle heat extremely well for prolonged usage
• does not damage the 3D prints if the electrodes ever gets hot
• cheap
• bendable (easier to shape to my needs)
• easy to source

I initially wanted to use acorn nuts with machine screws, and lug terminals, but I figured out they were too bulky for this project

I remember something:
solid copper cables, especially pvc insulated are available everywhere, has high thermal mass (for 2.5mm cross sectional area variant), and it makes for a great electrode, how? by stripping the insulations off of 8/10 of the length, and then wrap copper coils of off other stripped copper wires so it acts as a heatsink and provides better thermal mass and it adds to the aesthetic

and so I picked 2.5mm NYA Solid Copper wire as the electrodes, I hope I can glue it well…

also previously I had recorded 3 hours of work in lookout but it didn’t registered to stardance…

In that 3 hours I searched for the mosfet, diodes, capacitor, and the power supply, aswell as searching for the best way to pot a high voltage transformer, I ended up with a BOM like this

it’s an updated one, in the next session I’m planning to uhh design the CAD for the ZVS HV Wand, and I would try to finish it in 2 hours, it should be easy to print, minimal support, easy to grip, and would not cost more than 3$ or about 50.000 IDR, because I use an external 3D printing service, I need to make it as light as possible while maintaining strength and comfort, don’t worry about the prices and quality though, I have used this service, it gave insanely cheap price, and the build quality is surprisingly well for a cheap 3D printing service (PETG).