Inside an Airganix low level ozone air steriliser.
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- Опубліковано 10 лют 2025
- I've had this for a while, so it seemed a good idea to take it to bits and analyse the circuitry. It's a small plug-in device that uses a fan to blow air through a ceramic tube with a corona ozone generator.
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Taking the photos and blowing them up made it more involved and interesting, nice touch, great video :)
An especially fascinating video. As usual, the quality of your close up still pictures is outstanding.
I like how they align the tube right next to the fan's motor so it's in that lovely void of dead air...
i never tire of ozone smell. I turn over apartments for public housing. The commercial machine we have literally works miracles. Got a fridge loaded with food and the power has been off for 15 days in July... no problem.
Ozone generators were used on cargo ships to keep produce fresh during transit (I am talking 60's and 70's). I believe these devices were used to delay the ripening of some fruits in transit. The Ozone generator needed 220 AC and we had to covert 220v DC to AC and the rotary converters were ideal to power our AC devices such as our stereo units (or was it HiFi in those days) :-)
Very informative. Ever considered teaching Clive? You'd be one of those legendary teachers.
I subbed today. You have a very nice channel with tips and tricks and reviews. Very handy for my hobby.
This is what you need after the fart incident. Instant thought and you uploaded it now. The timing is so good
Hey! That's the ozone generator I had to replace the fan on earlier this week!
Wish I'd seen this before cracking it open, it's easier to follow explorers footsteps than be one
The whiny little fan is the most annoying thing about these.
Halfway through the video I forgot the boards were printouts and then wondered how you could write on the components so easily!
We use an old commercial ozone unit to get odors out of cars at work. Seems to help, in smokers cars, some.
The Ycap is standard for SMPSs even if there are no leads. There must be a return path for the noise capacitively coupled between primary and secondary. If the cap isn't provided, it will make its own return. Most likely not where you'd want to be. This could in random component failures.
Again very interesting and informative, I love how you explain it in every way! From circuitry to what it actually does and the theory behind that.
It's like learning from all angles, fantastic!
The inductor, primary coil and capacitor across the 555 mosfet form an LC resonant tank circuit and can boost the power to the hv transformer without the need for higher voltages. The capacitor gets hot because it sees very high currents.
That one component is the major weakness. Although Chinese capacitors are much better than they were, I'd be inclined to replace that with a known quality device (AND keep a few spares on hand)
Yes, the voltage across the capacitor will be 3.14 times the supply voltage and will be a sine wave if it is operating as an LC tank although if the capacitor is getting hot then it will be less because the capacitor is dissipating some of that as resistive losses because of high tank currents. That little adjustment knob probably just de-tunes it out of resonance a bit so the the resonant rise isn't as high.
A bit like what goes on in that ZVS flyback driver but without the ZVS part, Clive needs to measure the AC RMS voltage across the capacitor to satisfy our curious little minds.
One of those two diodes across the primary is a TVS diode, which is a zener that can stand transients. This cost more, but dissipates less power at no load. This way the can put the power switch on the output and still meet the EU standby power regulations.
It's aTinyswitch. They also tend to make high frequency audible noise at no or low loads, so that may be the hiss you heard when the device was "off."
I thought that, but there was also a continuing smell of ozone, so the high voltage was still running. The corona discharge makes a characteristic hissing noise.
Quite right, good on ya. very interesting video, Clive.
Smashing video, i loved the fact that the good old 555 timer is still found usefull :-D
Just love these videos !!
How do you think the output of this compares to the solid state HV DC generators you see in some other air ionizers? This looks like a better generator. The one I took out of a fan with a 'fresh air' feature was just one of those solid state sticks that takes a few volts up to a few kv, the output is just a PCB with a set of four pointed pins on it with a nearby ground plane to get the ions to flow.
So glad you have a solution to the fartagedden!!
I might be wrong, but that zener that drives the fan (and the cap near that for that matter), is cooled by the fan when the thing is assembled. I guess you measured the temp without the case. So normally it might not be that hot.
the way you drew that ozone molecule makes a chemist weep!!
Practical Wireless did a home ozone generator in the early '70s using a Xenon flashtube pulse transformer as HV source, and conductive carbon fibres (from an antistatic record cleaner) as the electrodes. The Dielectric layer was a glass microscope slide coverslip, and the kit certainly generated enough ozone to be detectable.
Thank you for your comment. I like the idea and will have a try with it.
I always wonder if the designers of these products ever watch Clive's videos and how amusing they'd find his comments on their design.
I know it's happened once that I know of. the person involved was quite intrigued at seeing his product analysed. (It was the big scary CCTV camera).
Oh, more than once, surely - what was the video you had to pull and cut down, then later reinstated, because the manufacturer wasn't happy about how much design detail was shown?
Also LPL
AND TOT
The way you said "vivid" at 1:30 sounded like a high-frequency arc.
The capacitor that gets hot is probably used as a resonant capacitor, for the transformer since it needs to generate AC, which cannot really be done by just switching the primary with a mosfet and 555.
The mysterious L and C are probably a resonant tank, witch is perfect for this type of application. That recycle the unused energy until lost appear at the output or as component heat. The drawback is a high current on L and C, that explain the high temperature of C.
I am going to have to re-watch this one and pay attention. As a student, I used to have a TV that was a good ozone generator; I never considered it a good thing but maybe it was not so bad after all...
A big part of the corona discharge chemistry end up being the production of nitrogen dioxide, which smells a lot like ozone but produces nitric acid on contact with water. From what I can see, a lot of the medical grade ozone sanitizers require an oxygen feed to prevent NO2 production.
Laser printers are a common source of indoor ozone pollution. Early Canon and HP laser printers used an activated charcoal filter at the high voltage discharge area of the fuser to break down ozone discharge. Later laser printers don't have this feature, so you can often smell the ozone from a busy copier or printer. Open the window if possible when you smell that.
My dad had a gigantic ozone generator designed for warehouses, that he would use in his apartment without the timer. Aside from irritation, it would almost immediately send me into a panic attack/manic episoe. Not cool.
Ooh, Clever Dick! I believe you flipped the photo of the solder side of the board mirroring the image for the lecture. Thanks!
I don't know how mch difference it would make due to the retricted airflow, but remember that the hottest components you found are right in front of the fan. They may not be as hot in regular use as when you measured the temperature.
The really hot capacitor across the fet is either a snubber (a bad way of doing it) or they're trying to make a resonant circuit and use zero voltage switching. Although the use of 555 timer is poor choice for the latter. So it's likely they were too cheap to put the standard RCD snubber across the fet.
Well, thinking about the hot compoments. They will have a small airflow thanks to the fan that will keep them alive a little longer.
Just a thought Clive, would the 'hot' capacitor be noticeably cooler when the fan is taken into account?
The little cylindrical fuse are known as Wickmann fuses. Wickmann are now part of LittleFuse
Clive, did you test the output of the 555 timer to find out what frequency the HV ozone transformer is operating at?
Not quite right on the common mode choke at 7:40.
Not the noise counteracts itself, the low frequency power does. This means the choke can be small without saturating from the power going through it.
The opposing diodes, zener and normal, are to clamp the flyback voltage on the primary, limiting that of the secondary.
Ozone generators do make things smell better. I have a rather powerful generator in my home, perhaps like one of the hotel machines. It's capable of making a room look foggy with ozone when it runs at full power. However the issue with ozone is that it's temporary. The effects fade after a day or two. And in fringe areas where ozone is killing stuff in the air, there is a strong stench of annihilated chemicals that smell far worse than whatever you are trying to eliminate.
Hi Clive very interesting, but do you have an oscilloscope? It would be nice to see what they device does when running like the output of the 555 for example.
Clive, liked the paper with the schematics. I just couldn't see things from so far away. I live in Washington State so could you zoom in on the schematics by 30% or more?
I know this seems like a stupid question, but would liquid ozone technically be a better rocket fuel oxidizer than liquid oxygen? Is it possible to even liquefy ozone?
Yes, you can liquefy it - but you might not want to do that. Yes, it would be a slightly better oxidizer but not practical.
There are other, even better oxidizers but they are all not used normally for propellants due to their inherent danger.
And - just use google.
too unstable, it would just become regular o2
Okay, thank you guys. I kind of figured that they would have used it already if it were practical. I know about ClF3, I would like to find something safer, but more energy-dense than liquid oxygen. Something that didn't require refrigeration would be a bonus, too.
what do you need a better oxydizer for?
liquid oxygen requires cooling as you said, but after oxygen the stuff becomes really dangerous.
Or just go with the simpler solid fuels?
They use nitrous trioxide to have a stable(ish) oxidiser with a similar number of oxygen atoms.
Thank you for shereing your time and knowledge blessings
What do you think of EveryCurcuit clive i use it to learn and tinker
Love your videos Clive,
If money was no object is there a project or something you would like to make / build?
Most of what I want to build is pretty affordable. I can't really think of any really large scale projects I'd want to undertake.
bigclivedotcom ah ok, I was thinking along the lines of research with powerful lasers .... maybe you could expand fanny flambeauxs ARSEnal ( pun intended ) like Q from the bond films lol
Components listed on the board but aren't present, would it help to add them?
you should sign the photos you print to explain the circuit, then sell them. i'd buy one.
What was the term he used when speculating what the pot did? "Marks space ratio"? "Mark's base ratio"?
Mark - space ratio. The on to off ratio of a pulse.
mark wal space
SueBobChicVid Marks and Spencer ratio. Better than the Asda and Sainsbury ratio.
Thanks Clive. I never heard that term used to describe an on/off cycle. I will now be able to pull that one out of my hat next week when giving training on time proportional control.
so aka the duty cycle ratio
What oscilloscope do you use mate coz ive never seen one in ur amazing videos. Keep up the good work :)
I use an Owon and Keysight.
Great stuff thanks! So how well does it actually work... How does it compare to those ionizers?
A traditional needle style ioniser is a better and safer option for continuous use. These are OK for bursts of deodorization.
I'd say the resistor across the optoisolator is a 470-ohm 1% type (4-band+tolerance instead of 3-band+tolerance)
How's the fart sniffer today. O man i was laughing so hard.
Is the smell of Ozone the same as static electricity from a CRT screen? As a kid I remember rubbing off the static from the TV with my hand, and it had that very distinct 'bleach' smell.
Used one of those hotel ozone units when I worked in a motel... only ours didn't have a timer. Did you know that it (ozone) can and will bleach damp carpets?
As far as I know the only cure for a damp carpet is a new carpet.
Found some on the bay of e "bogof" for under £15! I have 2 kittens so was wanting something to help with the associated whiff from the litter box
I remember playing with high voltage a lot when I was younger, the ozone could cause a headache quite easily.
It also can burn your lungs
What happens to the Nitrogen molecules in the air? Does it also not make NO and NO2, or making these molecules require extreme pressures as well? Like inside a combustion engine?
Interesting video...
Not high pressures, but big fat sparks, a corona discharge produces a negligible amount. Cody's Lab has a couple of vids where he makes Nitric Acid.
N2 is stable, but it will combine with O2 under the right conditions.
Lightning for example, produces tons on NO, N02, NH3 (which is ammonia that acts as a fertilizer which rains down on plants), not to mention O3.
A combustion engine uses pressure to create smug (NO2). Spark is not necessary (as per diesel engines).
Having a capacitor get hot sounds worrying as there are going to be reliability issues. The capacitor looked like a dipped ceramic type. If so it might be worth replacing it with a polyester capacitor with much lower esr.
Can you make one of these with a capacitive voltage multiplier?
No. It requires the AC to create the plasma. With DC you would get a tiny burst when powered and then nothing.
bigclivedotcom if you've ever seen a DC breaker you'd know that DC can create very violent, sustained arcs (plasma)
I used to be a projectionist, yes high current DC makes some huge arcs which get very hot. Though, even in the old carbon arc projectors with an open arc going across consumable carbon rods didn't really make that much ozone, just tons of harsh UV which you needed to shield yourself from.
Long arc xenon lamps had a more spectacular arc, with a sustained arc width of probably a quarter inch. The bulbs I worked with ran 25 volts at about 160 amps (4 kW.) Striking the bulb to start it made it look like a plasma ball briefly.
Hi big c do you think you could use ozone for a small torch like oxygen (O2) and acetylene replacing (O2) with (O3) or ozone not a big torch but something small like a Jeweler would use?????
+Robert Culliver No. The mini gas generators used for jewellers torches tend to use "Brown's gas". Basically electrolysis of water to create a pre-mixed blend of oxygen and hydrogen.
Years ago,, didn’t they use ozone generation to clean the air in hog barns?
Fox Wright
Thank you for the reply, ,
If they have been around for so long,, why do they think that they are hazardous. ...
I will guess that ozone is like beds,,, given that most people die in a bed,, they too must be hazardous. ..
Tanx. @¿@
Willy Bee it is hazardous, causes things to oxidize like crazy, that can mess up your lungs
PandaWonka
So hog's lungs are tougher that human lungs... The poison is in the dosage. We need some salt, but if we were to eat 5 pounds of salt a day,, that would kill us... So, what is the panic value for ozone?
I think we must outlaw lightning....
What people are told to think, may not have any bases in reality. ...
2+2=5
Willy Bee just like all poisons, there is a point it needs to exceed before it causes irritation or damage.
PandaWonka
Thank you for the reply.
That is my point, exactly. Just like with radon in basememts. If it were as poisonous as they try to make us believe, how did mankind ever leave the caves?
If something is said long enough and loud enough, people will believe that it is true.
Journalism: is the art of telling the truth in such a way as to make people believe a lie.
Thanks again...
so does the corona in a ozone air freshener set fire to the butane coming out of an aerosol air freshener? tbh I think an experiment is needed
It's not really hot enough to ignite a fuel-air mix.
I have stage 4 emphysema im not allowed to use one of these or sprays or anything that give off anything that pollutes the air
does that help, i could do that in 2 and a bit years if im not dead first
Just in case someone spots that things could get nasty if the TinySwitch's regulation loop fails, the IC shuts down if it doesn't see a 'stop' signal for 50ms then waits 850ms until restarting.
Hi Clive, the audio is very low in comparsion to other youtube vids. can you bump it up?
One of the officers on my PD picked up a dead skunk from the street and was intending on hauling it to the dump grounds, however got interrupted and forgot the damn thing in the trunk of the squad car. He had been driving an old car that was a standby for when one of the good cars was in for maintenance, to it went into the garage for storage, and sat there for over a month. The smell was getting so horrid that people walking near the garage were complaining. Well we investigated and found the stench, it was horrid in mid July. We removed the skunk and disposed of what remained, thank God he had the forethought to put it in a plastic garbage can. I called the steam clean service, they brought over an ozone machine and put it in the front seat of the car, and another outside the car for the smell in the garage. The next day, the car was drivable and the smell was gone from the garage. Wonderful stuff that ozone.
does an ioniser do the same thing with the oxygen molecules?
+Nadim Awan2 A real ioniser just charges the air with static electricity.
it's so strange, that mirrored image gave me an anxious feeling throught the whole time it was shown, like my brain was telling me, "DOES NOT COMPUTE"
that also generates nitrogen oxide which later combined with the moisture creates nitric acid...
"Here's the really violent way to make tons of ozone. It's basically a thin piece of glass with metal mesh stuck to both sides. When about 5kV is applied to the meshes, a large area corona discharge occurs between the mesh and glass on both sides. This makes a LOT of ozone." From: Make some ozone. Then sniff it. Mmmmmmmmm, fresh. (www.bigclive.com/makendo.htm)
I remember making the ozone panel shown on that page. Even with a 50Hz neon transformer it created a LOT of ozone.
Inhaling ozone on pupose is a bad idea. O3 is also known as a free radical. Also sischarged with welding, plasmacutters, copying machines and even electric model trains. The plasmacutter at work does give me a headache when used much.
Also atmosphere is nearly 75% nitrogen (N2). I'm suspecting this thing even makes NOx or NO2, not sure bout that though. N2 is pretty tough.
the dents still there still drawing my attention :)
What's the difference between ozone generators and ionisers?
Jimmy Söderman Sers Ozone generators create ozone, and ionizers change the electric potential of the air. Ionizers just add or remove electrons, ozone generators fuse oxygen atoms together
Jimmy Söderman Sers The spelling.
So basically, it's a small pre-thunderstorm generator.
I take it you wouldn't want to use it in the presence of flammable gases. I am learning more about ozone generators. I am curious how effective they are, and if they're safe for humans. I don't have pets, so I'm not concerned about that.
Edit: do they preserve food?
You get fridge units that will prolong the storage life of some items. Ozone is safe at very low levels, and occurs naturally in outdoor air.
I wondered the other day what O4 would be called, I guess oxygen is its own oxidizer, hence O2...
Thanks for sharing :-)
Maybe I should get one that triggers every time the cat curls one out.
But does it ACTUALLY do anything remotely close to to it's intended purpose or is it AS SEEN ON TV? I think it's does nothing effectively except it takes up a mains socket.
It absolutely works. This particular one, I don't know. Even extremely small amounts of ozone are dangerous, but there are still safe levels, a level that's safe enough to breath, will probably not be effective to remove smells. But a strong one will absolutely destroy smells, mold, bacteria, viruses, pests, and your mucous cells. The answer is to use a good one and leave the room for a whole day after you get enough into the air.
@bigclivedotcom we all know you like testing out poundland merchandise, so when are you going to give the "Nooky" range a go?
I'll be picking up some nooky stuff as soon as I see it.
How interesting, so is this the ultimate non-aerosol/chemical based solution to eradicating room odours? I'm intrigued, Clive, is there any way of making how well it can work to do that odour removal somehow tangible on UA-cam? Darned if I can think of a way, like. Anyone?
It depends on the source of the odour. It will freshen a room, but if a strong odour source is present then it's better to tackle the problem directly. A traditional open needle ioniser also produces a tiny quantity of ozone which can also help with suppressing odours.
bigclivedotcom All I remember these things doing in my experience of their hey day during the '80s was gathering bloody tons of dust onto the shelf they were sat on. I think they somehow knocked it out of the air?
Oh, and hi there Big Clive ya big sexy bear btw! *waves*
John Howard: The story of the fan of fake and death! I have one those kinda fans so I can tell you how they work: Very well, thank you.
John Howard: Clearly, ionisation is a thing but I'm guessing when it was a trending thing everybody just stuck the word on a button.
do these things really work ?
Q is what fun shockie things can we make out of this unit
It's not ideal for fun shocks.
I have a UV light i used for cleaning my bathroom and it makes that ozone smell
I've found ozone smells more like rust oddly, and have heard people say it's lavendery, odd
Doesnt that make no2 aswell?
Danyk has done something similar with the 2 suppresion diodes on his webpage, might be where they got it from.
danyk.cz/impulz4_en.html
Looks like the high voltage o/p transformer is resonant, the hot cap in parallel with it to make a tank, this would also explain the inductor in series with the supply, as you'd need this to decouple a resonant circuit, similar to a royer oscillator, but only having the one transistor iy cant self oscillate so needs the 555 to drive it.
Looks like the Esr of the orange hot cap is too high and its dissipating too much.
The Tny has an interesting function, at low loads is 'jitters' around the switching frequency up & down, this reduces Emi by not creating a stream of bursts at the same frequency, more a stream of varying frequencies, spreading out and lowering Emi.
what exactly would I want to generate o zone clive
Ozone occurs outdoors at low levels and is an essential part of air. It is short lived indoors, so it can be beneficial to reintroduce low levels.
A slightly more "sophisticated" design to the one you dismantled a few years back - ua-cam.com/video/6p_OnoUGyY4/v-deo.html. Same ceramic tube dielectric though, and essentially the same electronics (right down to the HV transformer, and 555-based oscillator).
I'm sure I've seen a video where a guy used an ozone generator to turn yellowed plastic back to white
corona discharge is nice and all to make ozone.... but what about other compounds like nitrous oxides forming? just curious. - and I agree with you that ozone is not that bad; but a lot of people claim its good for you, which lets be fair it isn't - its good to clean say mouldy rooms, not your lungs.
There is the side issue of nitrous oxide, but not in huge quantities.
I fully expected a diode-capacitor ladder voltage multiplier. If the Chinese got on the case they could probably make the same thing with 10% of the parts...
To generate the corona it needs an AC voltage applied across the insulator. There is a way to use a multiplier though. You basically create a needle based ioniser and then put a metal ring in front of each needle connected to the other end of the multiplier. It creates a stronger corona discharge on the tips of the needles and creates a slight airflow of ozonated air.
The equation for this if anyone's wondering is
O2 + O• >< O3
>< is an equilibrium
O• is an oxygen radical formed when an oxygen atom is split
I know of a chef in a kitchen we’re a ozone generator in side a canopy was running all the time and the chef became very ill with in a very short time and could no breath
It’s used to reduce smells from a canopy but a safety switch failed And stayed on all the time.
Would this work as a odour neutraliser?
It would in some circumstances, but not for continuous use.
What a shame but cheers for the coating biscuits in chocolate idea and the trash chocolate? Next time I well get the munchies I'm going to experiment for a giggle en it. Yo have you ever tried lemon curd with chocolate spread? Don't man its disgusting, ends up looking like snot only nose gold tastes better.....
nice.
Lets put a big one on top of a sky-scrapper and get rid of the carbon tax