I used to work in a commercial laundry where we used something like this to inject ozone into the washing machines. The ones we used were all enclosed, but the design was very similar. It used a glass tube with a port on each end, and there was a stainless steel brush electrode stuffed down the center. It looked like a giant bottle brush. I had to take them apart and clean them with denatured alcohol every year or so to keep them working efficiently. They were fed from an oxygen concentrator, similar to the machine a patient would get supplemental oxygen with, but not medical grade. Instead of the metal tube it just used capacitance to air, but they were also fed from a 12-15KV supply. They made some seriously potent ozone, and there were numerous sensors that would shut them down if the concentration in the room got too high.
@@PradeepKumar-ps4cs More like that's how they remove odours from the clothes. The dry cleaning itself should do a good job at killing microbes just on its own.
Hey! I use ozone for commercial and hospital laundry too (Brazil)! Glad to know...I´ve got awsome results, I hope you do as well too. pedrosvivaz@gmail.com
Beer is munificent in what it brings. a. It short circuits the "should I, shouldn't I" pins directly to the "worst happens, it goes pop, just do it" pin b. If the worst happens, the ensuing pain is numbed c. It makes comprehensive note taking during experimentation null and void, if you do take notes you can guarantee they will be missing crucial steps or be illegible after the fact. This furthers the scientific approach as next time you deal with something similar you have to start from scratch and are not carrying any pre-formed bias. There may be some residual memory along the lines of "I seem to recall I had an issue with the last one of these..... but not sure what... it's a while back... hey ho". d. Elevated risk of instant death. Better than a slow death in a care home or geriatric ward at 90+ believing all your relatives are gerbils if you remember them at all that is, while drooling profusely. (Sorry Clive, I typed that, then I remembered your Mum :( ... I'm opting to leave it in as people need to face up to the grim reality of ageing and what it may bring). I had more, but it all got deflated in my mind after that last one. sigh... the hangover sucks if you survive your high voltage and beer shenanigans.
The fact that you do most of your videos in one take is extremely impressive and one of the main reasons I sub to your channel. Thanks for not cutting out seemingly uninteresting bits.
@@gbear1005 Fun fact! That old timey voice sounds old timey because it has the TransAtlantic Accent. It was specifically designed for use over radio for clarity, so it's a non-regional accent.
We have 4 Ozone machines in our home and we're going to get a UV filter for our furnace soon also. We run an AirBnB and just love Ozone for how fast and effective it is as sanitizing EVERYTHING. We purge via smart plugs after a guest leaves, and after our cleaners are done so everyone has a germ-free environment before they enter. It also controls pests, mold, bed bugs... you name it! Best purchase we've made for the home and not that expensive anymore!
Remember the electrical discharge method of generating ozone also breaks apart N2 in the air. Single O and N recombine into varying lengths temporarily, call nitrogen oxides, and when those combine with moisture, like in our lungs, the result is nitric acid. I stick with UV.
Yaaay, Clive's here again! Thank you for another video featuring your smooth and pleasant voice; I often know nothing about what you're describing, but I totally enjoy it all the way.
@@jdhtyler A different testing method was to wrap them on tubes like these, and then dip them in electrified water (automated of course). The carbon brush method seems to help there, as no drying is needed.
i guess the heat colouring of the mesh happened when they molded the glass tube shut. Expected to see it only on one side where the wire goes in because you could make the tube sealed on one side and put in the mesh afterwards. hm. perhaps they put in the wire, close that side, and at the same time or afterwards pull the vacuum/gas on the other side while closing it.
That would be a bad idea when going to the shops; people would think you were giving away free beer. But it's a handy slogan for a T Shirt to wear for a lockdown UA-cam video.
I watched this while having my breakfast and choked on my coffee at that! A T-shirt would be great. It would also need the bigclive logo, but I think the beer should be something Scottish. Tennents?
PSU is basically a tiny spark gap Tesla coil, same technology as that in stun guns, usually two-stage, first one is a simple solid state oscillator with a small ferrite "flyback" step-up transformer or inductor as an autotransformer, which feeds the second spark gap stage, and the high voltage transformer module. What appears to be the "choke" might be actually the first stage transformer. Either that, or both stages are inside the white resin potted module.
If you have a laser printer in your home, you have a source of ozone... There's a wire that the paper passes under called a corona wire, and it is literally a corona-discharge unit like this -- only not as powerful. It is supposed to impart a negative charge to the paper, so that the positively-charged toner particles will stick to the paper better when the paper passes between the drum and the fuser (where the toner is fused onto the paper with high heat). But one of the side-effects of this corona wire is the production of a bit of ozone every time you print something.
We have presented to you an elaborate 20 minute pun around the word "corona" during CoViD'19 lockdown. Corona discharge to kill the coronavirus. A Corona beer, although undignified, would have been the perfect safety complement.
I believe that AC power on airliners is at a much higher frequency than the 50/60Hz used domestically, the idea being to let transformers and the like be smaller. Might this be why the ozone generator misbehaves when connected to the domestic mains?
@@mwechtal I'm thinking that you're right. Similar products on eBay say to use an airflow between 150 - 300 cubic meters an hour (which is a hell of a lot! - most of that would likely be for cooling). www.ebay.com/itm/Ozone-Generator-Ozone-Tube-7-5g-DIY-Water-Treatment-Air-Purifier-Home-Ozone-Tube/183790060116 I used to use a corona-discharge ozone generator last century to 'sterilise' recirculating water in a tropical fish breeding system. They work best with dry air (or even better with pure oxygen). I introduced the ozone-enriched air into a 0.5 m2 sealed PVC chamber that contained a large surface area media that some of the recirculated water then trickled over. That water was then dumped back into the system (before the debris filter so any unreacted ozone in the water reacted with trapped detritus rather than the fish's gills). The idea was to kill any microscopic pathogens in the water and this maintain the overall health of the fish. I used a belt and braces approach. On another 'loop' I also had a 1.5m long 50mm diameter stainless steel UV steriliser that contained a quartz UV tube.
Hi Clive, nice video as always! I've "gone through" a few of these tubes of this design during my research into water ozonation. A couple of them have even melted on me! The internal glass-electrode connection is tungsten, which traditionally bonds well to glass but is always very poor on these units. This is spot-welded to the stainless mesh inside. When they are new they sound very spikey and the 10Kv PSU produces a good amount of ozone but they nearly always start to fail at the solder joint between the tungsten and the external connection. The sound will die down to a buzz and after a while it arcs-out at the connection (the closest point) and eventually overheats. I'm not sure if the internal tube is meant to be under vacuum or filled with gas, I never found out because they were always broken! Sometimes I could hear the RCD in my lab humming when the units were on, which is never a good sign!
neat, I used to build gigantic ozone generators for water cleaning.. The idea was the same. It was a 1.5ft long x 3" diameter glass tube with foil stuck to the outside, covered in a large piece of capton tape, the center of the tube had a large stainless steel bar running through it and it was sealed at both ends with an air inlet/outlet at each side, Air passed through a oxygen concentrater and then was pushed through the tube and a lot of ozone came out the other end. Usually one of these machines had 5-15 tubes depending on the size and they basically ran off large neon sign transformers. It was beautiful to look at when it was running. Also I'm sure breathing in lots of ozone over the years even though I was always safe damaged my lungs a bit, I also lost most of my ability to smell ozone unless in super high concentrations. Also when they started to arc across the tubes due to moisture or usually an oily buildup, it put on quite the spark show.
I found a similar device inside an old kitchen extractor hood I don't use anymore. It looks similar except that the metallic grid is outside of the tube and there is another electrode inside of the tube. The internal electrode is a wire at the center of the tube so it's quite far from the grid, but the tube seems to be filled with gas because it lights up like a plasma ball. That's a very intriguing device!
There’s a delicate balance between a level of ozone that is safe and one that can do serious harm to living organisms. You see this in urban areas in the summer, where air quality alerts are issued when ozone levels get above a certain point. It would be difficult to maintain a consistently safe level of ozone in an enclosed space without monitoring equipment.
Well done Clive , Your inquisitive mind and your knowledge is just great,but just one bit of advice stay off the beer when working with high voltage. Thank you for sharing wealth of information, takes me back to my childhood day ,taking apart any electrical equipment to see what inside and trying to find how it works, I was not popular with my father.
Hi, where did you get that beautiful brown /green/blue socket with red button for AC connection? 😍 could you give me a link? thanks a lot and greetings for the super video!
this was really interesting, i just finished working for a company that builds and installs cold plasma systems for industrial odor control and being able to see another device pulled apart was a fun comparison.
I think the burn mark on the inside of the tube is from where they flash the "Getter" with a loop and a burst of RF , it burns up any remaining oxygen after evacuating the tube. As you mentioned the connecting wire is usually of an iron alloy which matches the thermal expansion characteristics of the glass. Thanks for sharing , most interesting.
I use these in marine fish tanks. Excellent at making the water crystal clear via an ozone reactor and great to see it taken apart. While not many studies are available, I’ve found ozone might break down proteins in the water, making it easier for bacteria to break down.
I had an earlier version. It had a ceramic insulator rather than a glass tube. Didn't last very long before the power supply failed. If you're dreaming about saving on chemical treatments for your spa/hot tub, I wouldn't recommend it. The ozone only partially dissolves into the water, which enables a build-up of ozone under the cover. The cover will bleach out, and the vinyl will break down in weeks.
Can you pump air through those inlet/outlet tubes, rather than just rely on the unit to aspirate normally? I'm thinking maybe something like a fish tank pump?
This is remarkably similar to an ozone generator I used to work with in a NOx Chemiluminescent gas analyser. These generators ran off the mains with a similar size discharge lamp & metal jacket arrangement. They could generate a considerable volume of O3 capable of corroding pretty much anything should a leak occur. The analysers required a large activated carbon "trap" to remove the ozone before the gasses moved onto an oil vacuum pump. This carbon became incredibly dry & oxygen rich, regularly bursting into flames when the traps were opened to replace the carbon. I recall the traps were basically a pipe bomb. One did go off in an emissions rack at a power station, blowing the cabinet sides off & causing a bit of a mess. Similarly something called a "Noxgen" was used to check the efficiency of the chemiluminescent NOx analyser internal convertors (NOx = NO+NO2) This was basically just a variable frequency ozonizer in a box. Clever stuff. I recall walking into an office in Rolls Royce, Filton one visit to the overwhelming stink of ozone in the building. Apparently people had been complaining about headaches & stinging eyes for a few weeks..
Hi, good video, concerning the described, as air flow through tube, could be that these act as breather tubes to allow for heat expansion and subsequent contraction! Lest the glass cracks?... Or does the electrical drive air through in a pumping action, thanks... Interested.... Thom in Scotland.
Very nice! The glass is sealed because the internal parts are not resistent to ozone, the ozone flow is outside. It is cheaper to close the glass than use stainless stell inside the tube.
I work on/repair industrial corona discharge systems ..amongst a lot of other stuff...used in the printing industry to etch web at 100 meters per second...they produce tons of ozone as a by product .we have to use 4" ducting and high flow extract fans to get rid of it quick enough...imagine a corona discharge with a very visible (in broad daylight) discharge area of ~ 110cm2 on each press looks fantastic. they use long ceramic 'electrodes' filled with metal balls...no special gas just normal air in the discharge area.
... '"and put in the vicinity and see what happens". [Me, "Yes"] .. "That's a terrible idea." Me, "Noooooo!" ] Such an emotional roller coaster, glad you went on. :-)
I used to work in blown film plastic factories and they used a device called a "Treatment" box. It was between 1 and 1½ metres wide (depending on the size of the bubble when it was converted to a lay flat form) and had multiple fingers 5mm wide that were adjusted to put an arc onto the plastic to make microscopic pits that would allow printers ink to settle in and set dry. Without the pits the ink would just peel off. The voltage across the fingers was 400V (no idea of the amps) but it used to produce and awful lot of ozone and the _arcing_ gave off a very nice purple colour. We got ozone poisoning once when the extractor fan on a 750mm wide treatment box decided it would take the night off and try and kill us. The result was worse than the worst hangover you can imagine and being a pisshead at the time I did have some hangover experience. That was 40 years ago and I still don't like being near a laser printer when it is spitting out toner covered pages because of the smell of the ozone.
I used to work in a water bottling factory that used an ozone generator to disinfect the water in a holding tank before bottling. They would allow the bottled water to rest for 2 weeks for the ozone to dissipate before sending it out for consumption. Ozonated water is bad for your health.
It is of course worth noting that elevated levels of ozone will make you feel unwell, and particularly high levels for a few hours can lead to heart attacks and the like. Ozone is one of the probable contributing factors to office sickness/sick building syndrome, since photocopiers and fax machines output it, and in a poorly ventilated office can lead to high ambient levels.
This is the same instrument described in school text books as the "silent electrical discharge"- silent refers to no arcing. About 0.1% of oxygen in air gets converted into ozone but there are cooled tubes that can produce about 1% or so using air. Using oxygen and a cooled tube, you can get upto 3% (I quote from memory). Corona discharge produces light and decomposes ozone.
Clive, I think you should place the glass tube back in with a couple of spacers at one end, so we can see the discharge between the glass and metal tube.
A friend of a buddy of mine, has a ozone generator connected up to the input(what gets pulled into the system from inside the house) of their heater/ac system of their home & yes, it does smell a little bleachy when the heater/ac is running the fan!
I see a lot of comments saying the discoloration of the mesh is from sealing the tube. That's certainly possible, but you'd expect them to do that side before they insert the mesh and then do the other side. Weird. It's possible that this is made using retrofitted machinery for making vacuum tubes, where there would normally be a getter in the end that needs to be inductively heated to work. I wonder if that's what it is. I don't think there actually is any getter material in that tube. Considering what it's for, there's no need for it to be vacuum. But it may just be something they didn't turn off.
@@Cadwaladr the funny part is they're coming back in some retro fashion for gaming if some UA-cam videos are to be believed. They still do make very brilliant colors that have only recently been matched by OLED and the like.
@bigclivedotcom - I wonder if the glass tube is borosilicate glass or quartz. I have built a few cylindrical ozone generators using concentric electrodes, but using ordinary soda-lime glass tubes. They tend to fail if a hot spot develops due to uneven spacing between the electrodes, causing the glass to overheat and crack. This would obviously be unacceptable in an aviation application.
Reminds me a bit of the old "Violet Ray" rigs used by beauticians and naturopaths. Corona leakage in transmitters and HV sections of CRT TVs was often accompanied by the smell of ozone. Older laser printers generally have an "ozone filter' because loose ozone causes degradation in rubber and in higher concentrations has adverse health effects (sore throat, scratchy eyes, headache).
Love this video Clive....reminds me of Blue Peter......and here's one I prepared earlier with tinned Cu wire and "sticky tape"......and then I stepped through the door, that I knew would lead to adventure. 😁 Q music
Big Clive has "Safety Beer", Colin Furze has "Safety Tie"... I can only manage a Safety Mug of Tea 🙁. There does look like some fairly precision manufacturing involved. Thanks for sharing.
Serendipitous outcome: learned and gained a bit of insight; retained functionality; opportunity for project of yet another PS, designed for specific constraints and requirements of the genny.
Thanks for disassembly! I have ozone generator with tube like this that broke, some yellowy semi transparent oily sludge leaked out of the air outlet and stopped providing ozone. Tube is much smaller (unless you have tiny hands) and I have no idea if it's fixable. Transformer and air pump are working fine, but never got ozone generator to work again. And it happened right before corona craze... Should I try to pour hot water trough it? 99% cleaning alcohol?
Do you have an "night vision" camera? If so, could you try and use it to look through the white potted section? I had a friend come over last night and we tried the raspberry pi cam to look through various materials and quite a lot of them worked revealing my fingers or metal objects behind... but I didn't have any potted stuff to hand to try it myself Maybe try it cold at room temperature and if that doesn't work leave it running for a while to get the transformer windings a bit warm
At low concentrations ozone does not destroy odorous chemicals, it deadens your sense of smell. In ambient air ozone preferentially reacts with carbon-carbon double bonds. The most common chemical it reacts with in a home environment would be ethylene, which comes from ripening fruit. Ethylene is neither odorous nor toxic, but ozone oxidises it to formaldehyde. Ozone is a strong respiratory irritant and is the last thing you want to expose vulnerable people to. Used in a controlled scrubber or when dissolved in water at high concentrations it can indeed be useful for disinfection or chemical oxidisation.
I have a Winix HEPA air purifier that has a high voltage generator hooked to a small brush looking thing, they call the feature “plasma wave” but I think is just what you describe, a trace level ozone generator.
My electrostatic air cleaner used to create a bit of ozone. I just had to replace the transformer. I can't get the original so I used a neon tube 3KV transformer that goes through a voltage doubler. The output appears to be 9KV and 10KV! (I got a used 40KV probe for my Fluke meter on Ebay). Surprisingly even though the voltage appears to be higher I am not getting ozone with this transformer (which outputs more current as well). This unit is around 40 years old. The original was a 4ma 3KV transformer. I had to replace it with an 8ma 3KV neon transformer. That is no longer made so I ended up with a 32ma 3KV neon transformer. So far so good.
Odd that there were sparks at the tip. I can't imagine it lasting very long if there are sparks. Usually Ozone production uses a silent (or near-silent like a hiss) electrical discharge. Sparks don't seem right!
I periodically set one on the return air grate and turn on the HVAC fan for a few seconds. Do you think I could knock that down if I used a fan controller? Would that reduce the amount of ozone it creates? I'd try it but I don't have any beer...
@@bigclivedotcom All I have is a 3.5g and a 10g but I found a small rechargeable one,, as for a refrigerator, with good reviews for 9 bucks on amazon. it's going to take a few days to get here. We'll see what that one does in the air return. It only takes a few seconds to have some discernable ozone all over the house with the others. I used to have an adjustable one in the basement I kept on as low as it would go but there weren't any parts for it when it finally quit after 5 years. It was awesome because it smelled so fresh PLUS no spiders! And no identifiable ozone odor, either. I forget what the lowest setting was but it was quite small. The adjustable ones are pretty expensive these days. Still, I'm definitely gonna get some beer and try the fan controller. It just controls voltage, right? That shouldn't hurt the transformer...I'm thinking...mine are just little "barebones" generators with replaceable plates. No box or fan.
Hmmm, I'm thinking the tube may indeed be under vacuum... the reason I'm thinking this is the blue coloring of the mesh inside at the end may be evidence of 'getter flashing' like is done to vacuum tubes to absorb the last dreggs of impurity and volatiles. And of course, ionising the air inside the tube if not under vacuum would be a waste of power, only the air outside the tube is what we want ionised to produce ozone. Many thanks for investing in the product and showing us whats inside :-).
As I do remember most aircraft systems utilize a 400Hz AC system for their on board electronics for aircraft use. Only if the provide AC in the bathrooms for electric shavers that will be at either 50 or 60 Hz. This could be the reason for the arcing you hear, it needs 400Hz AC.
As far as the noise and popping goes, are you certain that supply is designed for 240v mains? If it's intended for aviation it might expect a different supply. A bit of googling suggests most commercial jets use 115VAC @ 400Hz.
It's possible the tube was filled with argon and the arcs perforated the glass. I have a little ozone generator that looks like that, where I can see the argon glowing. It's glass tube with a spiral wire around sticking out of a black power supply base that runs on 12 V.
Would the input voltage/frequency matter if you're running it at 240V 50Hz and my google-foo suggests a lot of aircraft electrical the AC bus is 115V 400Hz? Maybe that would make it less noisy?
That is just like the homemade ozone maker I made many years ago. I used plastic test tubes that are actually partially formed 2 liter bottles. I used brass wool shoved in the tube, and wrapped copper mess around the outside.
I've thought about buying an ozone generator for a couple years now to use when the basement starts smelling a bit musty but don't really want to drop 100 bucks on one. I've been tempted to make a box to contain the UV from my 25W UVC bulb that has a couple small fans to move air thorough the box and see how well that'd work as a DIY solution.
Clive, my 20w two UV tubes fly zapper gave an all mighty bang and tripped out the fuse box. When I turned the power back on the two tubes lit up but now flys don't get zapped. What do you think blew in my zapper?
There’s a mains section for the tubes and a HV section for the zapper. If the bugs ain’t dying, that means the high voltage section isn’t working. Since the breaker tripped, it’s likely that something shorted to ground somehow. Might as well take it apart and see where the big electrical skid mark is. It’s already busted, can’t hurt to open it and see if it’s repairable.
The red wire inside the glass is the same type used in an incandescent light bulb which expands with the glass to keep a percent seal I think it’s like ferrite based wire or at least ferrite coating something along those lines
The last time I heard anything like that power supply was a mechanical buzzer designed to supply a square wave (before the days of transistors being powerful enough) to charge and discharge a high tension coil making a very high voltage pulsed DC.
I used to work in a commercial laundry where we used something like this to inject ozone into the washing machines. The ones we used were all enclosed, but the design was very similar. It used a glass tube with a port on each end, and there was a stainless steel brush electrode stuffed down the center. It looked like a giant bottle brush. I had to take them apart and clean them with denatured alcohol every year or so to keep them working efficiently. They were fed from an oxygen concentrator, similar to the machine a patient would get supplemental oxygen with, but not medical grade. Instead of the metal tube it just used capacitance to air, but they were also fed from a 12-15KV supply. They made some seriously potent ozone, and there were numerous sensors that would shut them down if the concentration in the room got too high.
Did it have a scrubber to desiccate the oxygen?
That's how they disinfect the clothes...
@@PradeepKumar-ps4cs More like that's how they remove odours from the clothes.
The dry cleaning itself should do a good job at killing microbes just on its own.
This is the great thing about the internet, no matter how obscure the subject an expert will always appear.
Hey! I use ozone for commercial and hospital laundry too (Brazil)! Glad to know...I´ve got awsome results, I hope you do as well too. pedrosvivaz@gmail.com
"If there's any health and safety inspectors watching, it's okay, I have beer" xD never change clive haha
Beer is munificent in what it brings.
a. It short circuits the "should I, shouldn't I" pins directly to the "worst happens, it goes pop, just do it" pin
b. If the worst happens, the ensuing pain is numbed
c. It makes comprehensive note taking during experimentation null and void, if you do take notes you can guarantee they will be missing crucial steps or be illegible after the fact. This furthers the scientific approach as next time you deal with something similar you have to start from scratch and are not carrying any pre-formed bias. There may be some residual memory along the lines of "I seem to recall I had an issue with the last one of these..... but not sure what... it's a while back... hey ho".
d. Elevated risk of instant death. Better than a slow death in a care home or geriatric ward at 90+ believing all your relatives are gerbils if you remember them at all that is, while drooling profusely. (Sorry Clive, I typed that, then I remembered your Mum :( ... I'm opting to leave it in as people need to face up to the grim reality of ageing and what it may bring).
I had more, but it all got deflated in my mind after that last one.
sigh... the hangover sucks if you survive your high voltage and beer shenanigans.
thank you brit we needed that🧗♀️🧗♀️🛡
Even better: he has Belgian beer 🍻
Brilliant! A literal laugh out loud moment!
The fact that you do most of your videos in one take is extremely impressive and one of the main reasons I sub to your channel. Thanks for not cutting out seemingly uninteresting bits.
Popping up out of the ocean between crashing waves will provide the sweetest air you've ever smelled. The "mistier" the better of course.
Why, with a spark gap like that one might be able to communicate clear to the Americas!
im in the usa and i heard it so yep :}
I hear that in my head in an old timely voice.
@@gbear1005 Fun fact! That old timey voice sounds old timey because it has the TransAtlantic Accent. It was specifically designed for use over radio for clarity, so it's a non-regional accent.
Problem is nobody would be able to stand listening to the damn thing for long!🤨
Oudin coil?
We have 4 Ozone machines in our home and we're going to get a UV filter for our furnace soon also. We run an AirBnB and just love Ozone for how fast and effective it is as sanitizing EVERYTHING. We purge via smart plugs after a guest leaves, and after our cleaners are done so everyone has a germ-free environment before they enter. It also controls pests, mold, bed bugs... you name it! Best purchase we've made for the home and not that expensive anymore!
I've always been a firm believer of a "safety beer".
thought it was called the "fortication" beer...
Or fortified safety bear. grrr.
I've always been a firm believer of "hold my beer and watch this".
Beer is good, it makes you feel like nothing can touch you. :-))
What will you give people to hold when you want to do something betterer.
The coloring on the screen at the end most likely was from the heat when closing the tube.
Yup.
I was just gonna say that
I suspected it too and it was confirmed when the other end looked the same
I'm glad you are observing proper safety precautions. Its always important to keep a safety beer at hand.
Remember the electrical discharge method of generating ozone also breaks apart N2 in the air. Single O and N recombine into varying lengths temporarily, call nitrogen oxides, and when those combine with moisture, like in our lungs, the result is nitric acid. I stick with UV.
corona discharge
previously: air ionization
2020: someone sneezing
I was about to comment the exact same thing
Oof.
Yaaay, Clive's here again!
Thank you for another video featuring your smooth and pleasant voice; I often know nothing about what you're describing, but I totally enjoy it all the way.
Oh, Clive 🙂 "Should we do that? Yes, we should!" You are amazing 👍
On the bright side.... you now have a really strange looking glass and metal condom art piece.
Steam punk, LOL
@@jdhtyler A different testing method was to wrap them on tubes like these, and then dip them in electrified water (automated of course). The carbon brush method seems to help there, as no drying is needed.
with a bite !
The dildo of death!
@@peehandshihtzu You missed the S in punk
Thank you for still using the word corona where it fits.
i guess the heat colouring of the mesh happened when they molded the glass tube shut.
Expected to see it only on one side where the wire goes in because you could make the tube sealed on one side and put in the mesh afterwards. hm.
perhaps they put in the wire, close that side, and at the same time or afterwards pull the vacuum/gas on the other side while closing it.
- Should we do that? Yes, we should. Yes, we absolutely should!
♥Clive!♥
Now I want an "It's okay, I have beer" t-shirt.
yes
That would be a bad idea when going to the shops; people would think you were giving away free beer. But it's a handy slogan for a T Shirt to wear for a lockdown UA-cam video.
I watched this while having my breakfast and choked on my coffee at that! A T-shirt would be great. It would also need the bigclive logo, but I think the beer should be something Scottish. Tennents?
Sadiq Mohamed Brewdog
'Warning. May contain Stella.'
PSU is basically a tiny spark gap Tesla coil, same technology as that in stun guns, usually two-stage, first one is a simple solid state oscillator with a small ferrite "flyback" step-up transformer or inductor as an autotransformer, which feeds the second spark gap stage, and the high voltage transformer module. What appears to be the "choke" might be actually the first stage transformer. Either that, or both stages are inside the white resin potted module.
If you have a laser printer in your home, you have a source of ozone... There's a wire that the paper passes under called a corona wire, and it is literally a corona-discharge unit like this -- only not as powerful. It is supposed to impart a negative charge to the paper, so that the positively-charged toner particles will stick to the paper better when the paper passes between the drum and the fuser (where the toner is fused onto the paper with high heat). But one of the side-effects of this corona wire is the production of a bit of ozone every time you print something.
you got my cat's attention removing the ends with the channel locks
Masterful use of the ol' saftey Stella!
I had to do a minor in electronics for my audio engineering degree. You've helped me understand the basics!
Thanks mate!
We have presented to you an elaborate 20 minute pun around the word "corona" during CoViD'19 lockdown. Corona discharge to kill the coronavirus. A Corona beer, although undignified, would have been the perfect safety complement.
I've never been that comfortable around creepy buzzy high voltage stuff - but now I understand I need more beer.
I believe that AC power on airliners is at a much higher frequency than the 50/60Hz used domestically, the idea being to let transformers and the like be smaller. Might this be why the ozone generator misbehaves when connected to the domestic mains?
400hz is the typical frequency for AC power on aircraft
I'm thinking the airline in the title refers to the air line that blows air through the tube. Not a commercial air carrier.
@@mwechtal I'm thinking that you're right. Similar products on eBay say to use an airflow between 150 - 300 cubic meters an hour (which is a hell of a lot! - most of that would likely be for cooling).
www.ebay.com/itm/Ozone-Generator-Ozone-Tube-7-5g-DIY-Water-Treatment-Air-Purifier-Home-Ozone-Tube/183790060116
I used to use a corona-discharge ozone generator last century to 'sterilise' recirculating water in a tropical fish breeding system. They work best with dry air (or even better with pure oxygen). I introduced the ozone-enriched air into a 0.5 m2 sealed PVC chamber that contained a large surface area media that some of the recirculated water then trickled over. That water was then dumped back into the system (before the debris filter so any unreacted ozone in the water reacted with trapped detritus rather than the fish's gills). The idea was to kill any microscopic pathogens in the water and this maintain the overall health of the fish.
I used a belt and braces approach. On another 'loop' I also had a 1.5m long 50mm diameter stainless steel UV steriliser that contained a quartz UV tube.
Good point. IIRC, it's 400 Hz.
Yeah that hunk of junk isn’t airline quality. !
Is it possible that the end seal on the glass tube is no good, hence the sparking and heated end of the mesh?
I was wondering that. Sparks ain't right.
Hi Clive, nice video as always! I've "gone through" a few of these tubes of this design during my research into water ozonation. A couple of them have even melted on me! The internal glass-electrode connection is tungsten, which traditionally bonds well to glass but is always very poor on these units. This is spot-welded to the stainless mesh inside. When they are new they sound very spikey and the 10Kv PSU produces a good amount of ozone but they nearly always start to fail at the solder joint between the tungsten and the external connection. The sound will die down to a buzz and after a while it arcs-out at the connection (the closest point) and eventually overheats. I'm not sure if the internal tube is meant to be under vacuum or filled with gas, I never found out because they were always broken! Sometimes I could hear the RCD in my lab humming when the units were on, which is never a good sign!
That humming is down to the sharp voltage spikes.
Always interesting, Clive. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us.
neat, I used to build gigantic ozone generators for water cleaning.. The idea was the same. It was a 1.5ft long x 3" diameter glass tube with foil stuck to the outside, covered in a large piece of capton tape, the center of the tube had a large stainless steel bar running through it and it was sealed at both ends with an air inlet/outlet at each side, Air passed through a oxygen concentrater and then was pushed through the tube and a lot of ozone came out the other end. Usually one of these machines had 5-15 tubes depending on the size and they basically ran off large neon sign transformers. It was beautiful to look at when it was running. Also I'm sure breathing in lots of ozone over the years even though I was always safe damaged my lungs a bit, I also lost most of my ability to smell ozone unless in super high concentrations.
Also when they started to arc across the tubes due to moisture or usually an oily buildup, it put on quite the spark show.
Squeak, squeak, squeak. "Ohh, get out!"
"that feels kinda promising"
"oh there it goes"
I found a similar device inside an old kitchen extractor hood I don't use anymore. It looks similar except that the metallic grid is outside of the tube and there is another electrode inside of the tube. The internal electrode is a wire at the center of the tube so it's quite far from the grid, but the tube seems to be filled with gas because it lights up like a plasma ball. That's a very intriguing device!
There’s a delicate balance between a level of ozone that is safe and one that can do serious harm to living organisms. You see this in urban areas in the summer, where air quality alerts are issued when ozone levels get above a certain point. It would be difficult to maintain a consistently safe level of ozone in an enclosed space without monitoring equipment.
You're not supposed to use these in truly enclosed spaces - you either run them in ventilated areas or when the area is not inhabited.
Eating grilled cheese is tasty. The recipient of the grilled cheese experiences joy.
It’s okay! He has beer ;-)
Well done Clive , Your inquisitive mind and your knowledge is just great,but just one bit of advice stay off the beer when working with high voltage. Thank you for sharing wealth of information, takes me back to my childhood day ,taking apart any electrical equipment to see what inside and trying to find how it works, I was not popular with my father.
Hi, where did you get that beautiful brown /green/blue socket with red button for AC connection? 😍
could you give me a link? thanks a lot and greetings for the super video!
Yes, I was googling my fingers off trying to find something like this!
I guess another 30 mins did it - it's called a 'safe block' if you're still wondering.
HSE "That looks unsafe."
Clive "Hold my beer!"👍🤣⚡⚡⚡
Wait, don't! I need that beer for safety reasons!
this was really interesting, i just finished working for a company that builds and installs cold plasma systems for industrial odor control and being able to see another device pulled apart was a fun comparison.
I think the burn mark on the inside of the tube is from where they flash the "Getter" with a loop and a burst of RF , it burns up any remaining oxygen after evacuating the tube. As you mentioned the connecting wire is usually of an iron alloy which matches the thermal expansion characteristics of the glass. Thanks for sharing , most interesting.
I use these in marine fish tanks. Excellent at making the water crystal clear via an ozone reactor and great to see it taken apart. While not many studies are available, I’ve found ozone might break down proteins in the water, making it easier for bacteria to break down.
The bit at 9:22 for around 30 seconds with my eyes closed does sound as if Clive is up to no good.
Creak, creak, creak.... "I'm just going to have to be more persistent with it." "Oh get off!"
lol
That's what I heard!
Nevermind the H&S, better worry about the Communications Act 2003...
"I would pause at this point in time [but you're all watching me now...]"
"I'm going to have to try and depot the primary side from its secretive black resin"
I would definitely like to see that...in real-time :)
Done and coming soon.
Try hot water, I have liberated many a secret from inside the potting with copius amounts of boiling hot water and patience.
@@3Dparallax If you need a lot of patience best go to a hospital, they have loads.
I had an earlier version. It had a ceramic insulator rather than a glass tube. Didn't last very long before the power supply failed. If you're dreaming about saving on chemical treatments for your spa/hot tub, I wouldn't recommend it. The ozone only partially dissolves into the water, which enables a build-up of ozone under the cover. The cover will bleach out, and the vinyl will break down in weeks.
Can you pump air through those inlet/outlet tubes, rather than just rely on the unit to aspirate normally? I'm thinking maybe something like a fish tank pump?
That's how it's normally used.
This is remarkably similar to an ozone generator I used to work with in a NOx Chemiluminescent gas analyser. These generators ran off the mains with a similar size discharge lamp & metal jacket arrangement. They could generate a considerable volume of O3 capable of corroding pretty much anything should a leak occur. The analysers required a large activated carbon "trap" to remove the ozone before the gasses moved onto an oil vacuum pump. This carbon became incredibly dry & oxygen rich, regularly bursting into flames when the traps were opened to replace the carbon. I recall the traps were basically a pipe bomb. One did go off in an emissions rack at a power station, blowing the cabinet sides off & causing a bit of a mess. Similarly something called a "Noxgen" was used to check the efficiency of the chemiluminescent NOx analyser internal convertors (NOx = NO+NO2) This was basically just a variable frequency ozonizer in a box. Clever stuff. I recall walking into an office in Rolls Royce, Filton one visit to the overwhelming stink of ozone in the building. Apparently people had been complaining about headaches & stinging eyes for a few weeks..
Hi, good video, concerning the described, as air flow through tube, could be that these act as breather tubes to allow for heat expansion and subsequent contraction! Lest the glass cracks?... Or does the electrical drive air through in a pumping action, thanks... Interested.... Thom in Scotland.
Very nice! The glass is sealed because the internal parts are not resistent to ozone, the ozone flow is outside. It is cheaper to close the glass than use stainless stell inside the tube.
the Vice of Knowledge goes unemployed for another day.
Or the X-ray machine!
I work on/repair industrial corona discharge systems ..amongst a lot of other stuff...used in the printing industry to etch web at 100 meters per second...they produce tons of ozone as a by product .we have to use 4" ducting and high flow extract fans to get rid of it quick enough...imagine a corona discharge with a very visible (in broad daylight) discharge area of ~ 110cm2 on each press looks fantastic.
they use long ceramic 'electrodes' filled with metal balls...no special gas just normal air in the discharge area.
I get the idea that this is what gets Clive all giddy and makes his day
... '"and put in the vicinity and see what happens". [Me, "Yes"] .. "That's a terrible idea." Me, "Noooooo!" ] Such an emotional roller coaster, glad you went on. :-)
Its common to put a catalyst inside, they heat it up and it reacts with all the impurities in the tube after you have vacuum sealed it.
that is a 'getter', but requires a heating element to operate. Common in most vacuum tubes.
11:55 I think its heated at the end because how they sealed it with a blowtorch
This is by far the most intense and suspenseful video Clive has made! (Haven't finished yet...)
I used to work in blown film plastic factories and they used a device called a "Treatment" box. It was between 1 and 1½ metres wide (depending on the size of the bubble when it was converted to a lay flat form) and had multiple fingers 5mm wide that were adjusted to put an arc onto the plastic to make microscopic pits that would allow printers ink to settle in and set dry. Without the pits the ink would just peel off. The voltage across the fingers was 400V (no idea of the amps) but it used to produce and awful lot of ozone and the _arcing_ gave off a very nice purple colour. We got ozone poisoning once when the extractor fan on a 750mm wide treatment box decided it would take the night off and try and kill us. The result was worse than the worst hangover you can imagine and being a pisshead at the time I did have some hangover experience.
That was 40 years ago and I still don't like being near a laser printer when it is spitting out toner covered pages because of the smell of the ozone.
I used to work in a water bottling factory that used an ozone generator to disinfect the water in a holding tank before bottling.
They would allow the bottled water to rest for 2 weeks for the ozone to dissipate before sending it out for consumption.
Ozonated water is bad for your health.
It is of course worth noting that elevated levels of ozone will make you feel unwell, and particularly high levels for a few hours can lead to heart attacks and the like. Ozone is one of the probable contributing factors to office sickness/sick building syndrome, since photocopiers and fax machines output it, and in a poorly ventilated office can lead to high ambient levels.
This is the same instrument described in school text books as the "silent electrical discharge"- silent refers to no arcing. About 0.1% of oxygen in air gets converted into ozone but there are cooled tubes that can produce about 1% or so using air. Using oxygen and a cooled tube, you can get upto 3% (I quote from memory). Corona discharge produces light and decomposes ozone.
Clive, I think you should place the glass tube back in with a couple of spacers at one end, so we can see the discharge between the glass and metal tube.
Shouldn't there be an airpump on this tube or is airflow enough without?
Interestingly those power supplies are the type sold separate as "Neon power supply" I bought a couple for lighting up old Crookes Tubes.
The title reminds me of an ebay listing...
You gave me a good laugh at the H&S beer comment. Gives them a scapegoat to which they can pin the bad idea on rather than you yourself.
Safety beer, nearly as good as Furze's safety tie!
A friend of a buddy of mine, has a ozone generator connected up to the input(what gets pulled into the system from inside the house) of their heater/ac system of their home & yes, it does smell a little bleachy when the heater/ac is running the fan!
I see a lot of comments saying the discoloration of the mesh is from sealing the tube. That's certainly possible, but you'd expect them to do that side before they insert the mesh and then do the other side. Weird. It's possible that this is made using retrofitted machinery for making vacuum tubes, where there would normally be a getter in the end that needs to be inductively heated to work. I wonder if that's what it is. I don't think there actually is any getter material in that tube. Considering what it's for, there's no need for it to be vacuum. But it may just be something they didn't turn off.
Very entertaining and informative to watch. And you have a pleasant voice.
I remember the ozone from our CRT TV back in the 60's
I remember it from my TV and computer monitors all the way to the 2000s. I think my last CRT TV died in 2012 or so.
Laser printers produce a lot of ozone, though they are supposed to have filters that limit what actually gets into the surroundings.
@@Cadwaladr the funny part is they're coming back in some retro fashion for gaming if some UA-cam videos are to be believed. They still do make very brilliant colors that have only recently been matched by OLED and the like.
@bigclivedotcom - I wonder if the glass tube is borosilicate glass or quartz. I have built a few cylindrical ozone generators using concentric electrodes, but using ordinary soda-lime glass tubes. They tend to fail if a hot spot develops due to uneven spacing between the electrodes, causing the glass to overheat and crack. This would obviously be unacceptable in an aviation application.
Reminds me a bit of the old "Violet Ray" rigs used by beauticians and naturopaths. Corona leakage in transmitters and HV sections of CRT TVs was often accompanied by the smell of ozone. Older laser printers generally have an "ozone filter' because loose ozone causes degradation in rubber and in higher concentrations has adverse health effects (sore throat, scratchy eyes, headache).
Great video , silly question please ........Can the 2 x wires you connected to the '' meter '' to get power be connected to a mains plug instead ?
Yes.
Love this video Clive....reminds me of Blue Peter......and here's one I prepared earlier with tinned Cu wire and "sticky tape"......and then I stepped through the door, that I knew would lead to adventure. 😁 Q music
Good to see someone being responsible and using appropriate safety equipment ;)
Big Clive has "Safety Beer", Colin Furze has "Safety Tie"... I can only manage a Safety Mug of Tea 🙁.
There does look like some fairly precision manufacturing involved.
Thanks for sharing.
Serendipitous outcome: learned and gained a bit of insight; retained functionality; opportunity for project of yet another PS, designed for specific constraints and requirements of the genny.
Thanks for disassembly!
I have ozone generator with tube like this that broke, some yellowy semi transparent oily sludge leaked out of the air outlet and stopped providing ozone.
Tube is much smaller (unless you have tiny hands) and I have no idea if it's fixable.
Transformer and air pump are working fine, but never got ozone generator to work again.
And it happened right before corona craze...
Should I try to pour hot water trough it? 99% cleaning alcohol?
Brilliant for a car ignition system, I'm sure it'd make a hell of a spark
16:47
Dear Clive, I was so hoping you'd reassemble the thing and point the camera down the tube while in use.
Do you have an "night vision" camera?
If so, could you try and use it to look through the white potted section?
I had a friend come over last night and we tried the raspberry pi cam to look through various materials and quite a lot of them worked revealing my fingers or metal objects behind... but I didn't have any potted stuff to hand to try it myself
Maybe try it cold at room temperature and if that doesn't work leave it running for a while to get the transformer windings a bit warm
At low concentrations ozone does not destroy odorous chemicals, it deadens your sense of smell. In ambient air ozone preferentially reacts with carbon-carbon double bonds. The most common chemical it reacts with in a home environment would be ethylene, which comes from ripening fruit. Ethylene is neither odorous nor toxic, but ozone oxidises it to formaldehyde. Ozone is a strong respiratory irritant and is the last thing you want to expose vulnerable people to. Used in a controlled scrubber or when dissolved in water at high concentrations it can indeed be useful for disinfection or chemical oxidisation.
I have a Winix HEPA air purifier that has a high voltage generator hooked to a small brush looking thing, they call the feature “plasma wave” but I think is just what you describe, a trace level ozone generator.
My electrostatic air cleaner used to create a bit of ozone. I just had to replace the transformer. I can't get the original so I used a neon tube 3KV transformer that goes through a voltage doubler. The output appears to be 9KV and 10KV! (I got a used 40KV probe for my Fluke meter on Ebay). Surprisingly even though the voltage appears to be higher I am not getting ozone with this transformer (which outputs more current as well). This unit is around 40 years old. The original was a 4ma 3KV transformer. I had to replace it with an 8ma 3KV neon transformer. That is no longer made so I ended up with a 32ma 3KV neon transformer. So far so good.
Clive Hi. Would an ICE burn more efficiently if ozone nitrogen mix was burnt in the combustion chamber instead of ordinary air?
Hi Clive, is there a reason you didn't use the Cliff quicktest the first time you powered it on?
11:10- should we do that?
11:10- Yes we should!
This is why I love watching bigclive! 😀
Odd that there were sparks at the tip. I can't imagine it lasting very long if there are sparks. Usually Ozone production uses a silent (or near-silent like a hiss) electrical discharge. Sparks don't seem right!
I periodically set one on the return air grate and turn on the HVAC fan for a few seconds. Do you think I could knock that down if I used a fan controller? Would that reduce the amount of ozone it creates? I'd try it but I don't have any beer...
The best approach for ozone in a house is to have a low level emitter in the air handling system. Like one of the carbon fiber emitter ionizers.
@@bigclivedotcom All I have is a 3.5g and a 10g but I found a small rechargeable one,, as for a refrigerator, with good reviews for 9 bucks on amazon. it's going to take a few days to get here. We'll see what that one does in the air return. It only takes a few seconds to have some discernable ozone all over the house with the others. I used to have an adjustable one in the basement I kept on as low as it would go but there weren't any parts for it when it finally quit after 5 years. It was awesome because it smelled so fresh PLUS no spiders! And no identifiable ozone odor, either. I forget what the lowest setting was but it was quite small. The adjustable ones are pretty expensive these days.
Still, I'm definitely gonna get some beer and try the fan controller. It just controls voltage, right? That shouldn't hurt the transformer...I'm thinking...mine are just little "barebones" generators with replaceable plates. No box or fan.
Hmmm, I'm thinking the tube may indeed be under vacuum... the reason I'm thinking this is the blue coloring of the mesh inside at the end may be evidence of 'getter flashing' like is done to vacuum tubes to absorb the last dreggs of impurity and volatiles. And of course, ionising the air inside the tube if not under vacuum would be a waste of power, only the air outside the tube is what we want ionised to produce ozone. Many thanks for investing in the product and showing us whats inside :-).
As I do remember most aircraft systems utilize a 400Hz AC system for their on board electronics for aircraft use. Only if the provide AC in the bathrooms for electric shavers that will be at either 50 or 60 Hz.
This could be the reason for the arcing you hear, it needs 400Hz AC.
As far as the noise and popping goes, are you certain that supply is designed for 240v mains? If it's intended for aviation it might expect a different supply. A bit of googling suggests most commercial jets use 115VAC @ 400Hz.
BigClive you have always heart warming and educational deja-vus :)
It's possible the tube was filled with argon and the arcs perforated the glass. I have a little ozone generator that looks like that, where I can see the argon glowing. It's glass tube with a spiral wire around sticking out of a black power supply base that runs on 12 V.
Would the input voltage/frequency matter if you're running it at 240V 50Hz and my google-foo suggests a lot of aircraft electrical the AC bus is 115V 400Hz? Maybe that would make it less noisy?
Lightning is said to make nitrogen usable for plant fertilizatiom. Does this process deoxidise nitrogen? Like hydrogen from water?
Air nitrogen is mostly pure N2, no oxygen to remove.
It can create nitric acid if you bubble the gas through water. That can be used to make ammonia or urea nitrate. Expensive but possible.
That is just like the homemade ozone maker I made many years ago. I used plastic test tubes that are actually partially formed 2 liter bottles. I used brass wool shoved in the tube, and wrapped copper mess around the outside.
Dumet- dual metal, steel with a slightly oxidized copper plating. The glass bonds to the copper oxide. I love neon.
I've thought about buying an ozone generator for a couple years now to use when the basement starts smelling a bit musty but don't really want to drop 100 bucks on one. I've been tempted to make a box to contain the UV from my 25W UVC bulb that has a couple small fans to move air thorough the box and see how well that'd work as a DIY solution.
Is this a piece of airline equipment? Doesn't airline equipment run on 400 Hz Power?
The power supply for that unit is where the buzzing was coming from? If so I think it's a spark gap / Oudin coil driver.
Clive, my 20w two UV tubes fly zapper gave an all mighty bang and tripped out the fuse box. When I turned the power back on the two tubes lit up but now flys don't get zapped. What do you think blew in my zapper?
There’s a mains section for the tubes and a HV section for the zapper. If the bugs ain’t dying, that means the high voltage section isn’t working.
Since the breaker tripped, it’s likely that something shorted to ground somehow. Might as well take it apart and see where the big electrical skid mark is. It’s already busted, can’t hurt to open it and see if it’s repairable.
The red wire inside the glass is the same type used in an incandescent light bulb which expands with the glass to keep a percent seal I think it’s like ferrite based wire or at least ferrite coating something along those lines
The last time I heard anything like that power supply was a mechanical buzzer designed to supply a square wave (before the days of transistors being powerful enough) to charge and discharge a high tension coil making a very high voltage pulsed DC.