Growing up I remember having fun with an old Van de Graaff Generator that lived in a friends basement (his dad was a high school science teacher). Dmitriy sent in his DIY Van de Graaff Generator Project that he just completed using some things around the house. The inspiration was from a popular M&M’S holiday ornament tin that can be found these days (probably on the clearance shelf today).Â
“Since it’s using a part that people would normally hang on a Christmas tree, I though it may be a good time to post before people start taking their trees down. Funny thing, too: the $2 was for the M&M’S holiday ornament tin. Since it’s past Christmas now, I’ve seen it in the same store for $1.15 So you can just as well call it a $1.15 Van de Graaff. Seriously though, I was looking to see if the miniature scale would kill the high voltage generation and it turns out that it does inhibit the potentials that could be achieved but it still works, I estimate to some 5kV, give or take (1″ sparks in dry air).”
