01-05-11 – Sparks, Arcs, and Other Flashy Things

It’s hard to find someone who can or will repair electronics at the component level anymore. On most consumer devices, it’s either throw it away or diagnose what board the failure’s on and then replace that board.

I studied a good bit of EE back in school but went the software career path so all but the basics have evaporated. I was pretty proud of myself recently, though – I managed to fix our microwave. Using Google-fu, a multimeter and the process of elimination, it turned out to be oxidation on one of the door safety switches. A little steel wool and we were back in business.

Of course that was the last thing I checked, after the magnetron, the HV diode and capacitor, transformer, etc. If I was getting paid by the hour for it, it would’ve been cheaper to have bought a new one.

Hey guys, here’s my brother-in-laws answer to the arc question. Hope it means more to you than it does to me. I copied some of your electrical comments and sent them along with my e-mail. This is what he had to say, I can’t recall details of the gear that produced the arc except that the module that produced the high voltage was probably a military surplus unit with 28 volt DC input and perhaps 2,000 or more volts output, with output connected across a high voltage capacitor with the # 14 copper wire to display the arc, as shown in the photo. I closed the gap between wires (voltage obiviously off!!!) experimentally to obtain the longest arc possible. The resistors may have been in place as a voltage divider to enable a measurement, can’t recall for sure. I enjoyed reading the blogs re other arc generation work, was impressed by the 12 and 24 volt battery approach, I,ll bet the sound was both louder and at a lower frequency (average) than mine, with all the power available from the batteries.