How to Make Plasma Balls in Two Days

Drill a 1/8-inch hole in the center of the rubber stopper. Ensure that the rubber stopper is a suitable size for the opening in the top of your flask. This stopper is going to be used in conjunction with the pipe to add gas and then electricity to the flask.

Insert the pipe through the hole in the stopper so that it is mainly extending from one side but is still visible through the other side.

Attach the brass valve to the shorter end of the 1/8-inch pipe. You have constructed a device suitable for delivering a noble gas into the glass flask, which is necessary for plasma to be created inside. Place the stopper inside your flask, with the longer end of the pipe extending into the center of the flask.

You can skip most of the process by using a light bulb, because a light bulb is already a glass bulb filled with a noble gas; however, light bulbs get very hot when in operation.

Pump a noble gas such as argon into your flask. Attach a nozzle from the pump onto the end of the brass valve and open the valve. Pump the gas into the flask. Use a combination of gases such as neon and argon (99.5 percent neon to 0.5 percent argon) to get a result with the lowest voltages possible. Argon alone produces a blue-purple plasma arc.

Close the valve and disconnect the pump. With the noble gas filling the flask, attach the power supply to the transistor driven flyback transformer; 12 volts DC will usually suffice. Look up the specific power supply requirements of your transformer to be exact.

Attach the high voltage output to the pipe and attach the other side to a ground point. Plug in your power supply to start the plasma ball.