This is hands-down the easiest way to make a Jacob’s Ladder, period. All you need is an old TV and a death wish.

The actual tutorial in the video is quite subtle, so here’s a written explanation of exactly what we did:

Instructions:

1. Take apart a CRT TV. Be careful! They can implode if you crack the glass.
2. Rip the circuit board out. This will probably require cutting a few wires.
3. Plug it into the wall, and turn it on. You should hear a high-pitched noise. This is the part where you be EXTREMELY careful.
4. Two of the biggest (usually red) wires will arc up to a few centimeters. These are the wires you want. Don’t get your bare skin near them. Keep your left hand behind your back at all times.
5. Hook the two arcing wires up to a pair of metal rods that are in a long V-shape. Voila! That’s all there is to it.

You might have to initiate the spark by putting something metal between the two wires at the bottom.

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. A SINGLE MISTAKE WILL KILL YOU. The electricity is powerful enough to instantly kill you. Would not recommend.

The post New Video: How to Make a 20,000 Volt Jacob’s Ladder (Sort of) appeared first on Blasted Science.

Late Condolences to a Brother in Arms

Turns out we aren’t the only idiots in the world. Some other guy decided to copy us and make a Jacob’s ladder. Unlike us, though, they were unable to keep themselves safe. They are no longer with us. Actually, they haven’t been with us for almost a year now. We didn’t get the message until recently.

Homemade Jacob’s Ladder

A young boy, not unlike the members of Blasted Science, built a Jacob’s Ladder in his garage, just like we did. Tragically, he was found dead by his parents.

A 15-year-old boy in Ohio electrocuted himself while attempting a science experiment he saw on YouTube, Reuters reported.

The teenager, Morgan Wojciechowski, tried to conduct a high-voltage experiment, called Jacob’s Ladder, in the garage of his home in northern Ohio. Wojciechowski’s parents found him there on Tuesday, ABC News reported, and emergency crews took him to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Source

Cause of Death

The article suggests that the reason he died was because many online Jacob’s Ladder tutorials don’t have any warning about how dangerous it is:

It’s easy to find a Jacob’s Ladder tutorial on the internet, and it might not tell you you can die from making it.

That’s a pretty awful thing for people to do. How could they just ignore the danger to their viewer’s lives? That’s downright sinister. A big problem for many tutorials is that the author can unintentionally assume that the viewer already knows how dangerous electrical experiments are.

(Editor’s note: contrary to popular belief, we aren’t guilty of this whatsoever; we know how dangerous Jacob’s Ladders are, but choose to ignore it. Because we’re smart, y’all.)

The Lesson

Don’t be a dumb! Compared to the one in the article, our Jacob’s Ladder had double the voltage and we probably took less precautions. There’s also no chance that we’re more intelligent than our deceased compadre. How did we survive? The answer is simply the combination of our two best traits: sheer luck and incredibly thick, resistive skin.

Blasted Science’s first attempt at a Jacob’s Ladder.

The post Possible Foreshadowing? A Failed Jacob’s Ladder Experiment appeared first on Blasted Science.

We have been hearing way too much about alternative energy sources and random crappy sources that are not efficient at all. We already have a great source, but a few experiences that make us not want to touch it. This great source is nuclear energy.

Like we said earlier you probably don’t like the sound of it, but the truth is nuclear energy is the bomb! Pun very intended. All jokes aside, nuclear energy is cleaner, safer, and more efficient than most people think. People terrified of the unknown. So let’s learn some things to make it known.

How does it work?

Nuclear energy is created through a process called nuclear fission. Nuclear fission is just a fancy word for splitting apart a nuclear atom to acquire the desired superpower. Well half of that is true, I’ll let you decide which half. This energy is in the form of heat which warms up some liquid, Blasted Science prefers Dr. Pepper, but we are only humble rocket scientists. When the Dr. Pepper is hot enough it will start making bubbles and will steam. It must be approximately 212 degrees Fahrenheit or if you live any other place but the United States 100 degrees Celsius. The best way to tell the temperature is to dive straight in it and time how long it takes to burn the flesh. Once you are nice and crispy then you know it is ready.

Safety Stuffs

It is safe, trust us. Don’t question only obey. There are so many safety precautions that we don’t know where to start. So we won’t start. Instead we will loosely quote what pulled up on Google “Nuclear power is safe and continuing to get safer, so stop being a baby you’re fine.” That’s what Google said, so if you don’t trust us then trust them.

Conclusion

We are constantly improving as a species. What is the point in improving barbaric ways of making energy if we could just switch to one that is way better? Blasted Science is not here to tell you that you are wrong, unless of course you are, but we do want to inform you. We think you should form your own opinion, and as long as it is the same as ours you should voice it. 

The post Nuclear Energy – Why Not? appeared first on Blasted Science.

Onion Omega2

The Omega2 is one of those increasingly popular single-board computers. It made its debut on Kickstarter last year. Is it any good?

I’ll be up-front about it. I’m not the target market for the Omega2. It’s similar to a Raspberry Pi Zero, but with one big difference: the Zero is designed for, well, doing a lot of things. The Omega2 is designed for IoT. Blasted Science has absolutely no interest in IoT whatsoever, but the price tag was absolutely irresistible at $5.

Actually, the version I’m reviewing is the $9 “Plus” version. The only difference is that the Plus variant has double the RAM and storage. This review should apply equally well to both models, though. Here’s the spec sheet:

Slower than the Pi Zero, but you don’t buy these for speed, right?

Shipping Woes

For a brief time, I was very disappointed in Onion’s shipping ability. It had been more than a month longer than they promised and I still hadn’t gotten our Omega2. However, it turns out it wasn’t their problem. I had forgotten to fill out the delivery form on Kickstarter. Oops. My bad.

Setup

The Omega2 was much more difficult to setup than I thought. To power it via MicroUSB, you need dock, purchased separately. The dock costs twice as much as the computer itself, which is a big disappointment. If the Pi Zero can incorporate USB and keep the price under $5, it seems inexcusable to make it an add-on feature for $10. Being a tightwad, I passed on buying it and decided to build my own power supply. I already had all the parts except one: a voltage regular. I found a pack of 10 on Ebay for cheap.

The power supply isn’t complicated at all, and is well documented. However, it still gave me a bunch of problems, which once again were likely my fault. The Omega2 would start booting up, but the power light would turn off after 10-20 seconds. After spending hours trying to isolate the problem, I discovered it was my power supply. As a quick hack, I swapped out a broken-out phone charger with 4 AA batteries. Success!

My messy, homemade Omega2 power supply. It’s simpler than it looks.

The setup process is surprisingly simple and well-designed. You interact with the Omega2 via another computer; connecting it to the Omega2 via Wifi. You simply point your web browser at a specific IP address and the setup can begin. All you have to do is give it your Wifi password, and you’re done. Optionally, you can update your device’s firmware and install the “console”. After that, you’re ready to begin using it.

Usage

One advantage the Omega2 has over any Raspberry Pi is that it comes with 32Mb of storage (64Mb for the Plus); this allows it to run a full Linux installation out of the box, no microSD card required. While it’s by no means a sizable amount of storage, it’s enough for basic functionality. Fortunately, it does have a microSD slot.

The underside of the Omega2

You can interact with the Omega2 via SSH or serial, but I didn’t try either one. The simplest method of interaction is via the same IP address used for setup. If you choose to install the console, you get a good-looking web interface loaded with a few useful apps.

Kinda reminds me of Ubuntu

To reiterate, I have no interest in actually using this device for IoT. I poked around the various apps, but have no real use for any of it. I did install Python and test a few lines of code, but that’s been the extent of my testing so far.

The Bottom Line

The Omega2 is a well-designed, low-cost Raspberry Pi competitor, although its cheap price rises quickly with the addition of basically-required accessories. It’s also pretty good at doing IoT things. Probably. I wouldn’t know. But it’s cool. It made a fine addition to my collection.

A pretty snazzy little machine. I bet it works just fine.

Various accessories for the Omega2 can be purchased at the official store.

The post Onion Omega2 Review – a Pi Zero with a Cool Trick appeared first on Blasted Science.

This update is a couple months late. We noticed.

The post New Video: Blasted Science Documentary appeared first on Blasted Science.

5. Spaghetti

A thermic lance is a heavy-duty demolition tool that burns steel alloys and aluminum in pressurized oxygen to create temperatures hot enough to cut… anything, really. Instead of burning steel, this do-it-yourself version uses spaghetti as fuel.

Spaghetti may not seem particularly flammable, but with pure oxygen just about everything becomes a pyromaniac’s dream. With just an oxygen tank, aluminum foil, and a small handful of spaghetti, you can make a thermic lance that burns hot enough to melt through concrete.

Thermic lances are used in construction and demolition to cut large pieces of steel. This homemade version can get hot enough to melt metal. All you have to do is hook up one side of a small hose to an oxygen tank and attach a small amount of spaghetti wrapped in aluminum foil to the other. Igniting the spaghetti in the oxygen-rich tube produces a crazy-hot flame, creating the cheapest steel-melting lance you’ll ever see.

It is worth noting that Blasted Science has constructed their own thermic lance. However, ours never runs out of oxygen. Instead of a tank, we hooked it up to an oxygen generator for longer burning.

4. Ammonia

Ammonia itself can be dangerous (inhalation not recommended), but when combined with iodine, the extremely volatile explosive Nitrogen Triiodide is formed. Touching it with just about anything is enough to make it explode.

All you need is ammonium hydroxide, easily purchased as a household cleaner, and iodine crystals, easily purchased online. Simply dissolve the iodine crystals in the ammonium hydroxide and wait a few hours. Pour the resulting liquid over filter paper to collect the explosive. Be careful: even though the compound is more stable while in solution, it can still potentially explode while dissolved.

Nitrogen Triiodide has no practical use, due to its extreme sensitivity to friction, but it can certainly be entertaining. Be extremely careful with these crystals; the slightest touch and you can kiss your fingers goodbye. It’s recommended that you start small, and work your way up to bigger amounts once you know what you’re doing.

Blasted Science attempted to make Nitrogren Triiodide, but our iodine samples weren’t nearly pure enough for it to work.  Sticking live wires into a bottle filled with iodized salt water probably wasn’t the best way to obtain iodine.

3. Etch-a-Sketch

This common toy is loaded with powdered aluminum. Aluminum, sadly, doesn’t burn. Unless it’s combined with rust, that is.

Mixing powdered aluminum and iron oxide (rust) in the correct ratio, three parts iron oxide to one part aluminum, creates thermite. Thermite isn’t explosive, but burns at insanely high temperatures and produces iron. However, it also requires insanely high temperatures to ignite; a normal flame won’t do it. Using a sparkler is an easy way to get it started. Never ignite thermite near yourself; it spews molten metal all over the place. You don’t want to be anywhere near it once it’s lit.

After the time of writing (this list has been in limbo for a long time), Grant Thompson and Cody’s Lab successfully created thermite from an Etch-a-Sketch. The video from Cody’s Lab goes into greater detail on their project.

Thermite burns at well above 4,000° Fahrenheit: hot enough to melt through things not usually considered meltable, such as dirt. Good luck finding a container that can hold it. Most commonly, ceramic containers are used, such as flowerpots. Surprisingly, it is 100% legal to own and use. Have fun.

2. Drain Cleaner

Drain cleaner, aluminum foil, and a pop bottle are used to make what is called a “Drano bomb.” Combining drain cleaner (sodium hydroxide) and aluminum foil produces hydrogen gas. If the reaction occurs in a sealed bottle, the pressure will increase until the bottle explodes.

Using drain cleaner to make bottle bombs can be very dangerous. The explosion can cause chemical burns and the loss of fingers. For this device in particular, please be mature. These bombs are often left in people’s yards and mailboxes, and can cause severe damage to people and property. Be extremely careful with explosives and never use them to harm anyone or anything.

Alternatively, try stretching a balloon over the mouth of the bottle. The balloon will fill with hydrogen gas, which is lighter than helium and extremely flammable. Try lighting the balloon with a match, even a small balloon will make a sizeable explosion. You’ll definitely want to wear thick gloves while lighting it.

Blasted Science’s hydrogen bomb in the making

Blasted Science can confirm that this works very well. Unfortunately, our video has become corrupted, and our only evidence is the single photograph above.

1. Lantern Battery

Using a power supply built from microwave oven transformers, the carbon rods in lantern batteries happen to work perfectly as electrodes in a miniature electric arc furnace hot enough to turn metal and rocks into molten goop.

The entire process is detailed by Grant Thompson in one of his most dangerous DIY projects to date. This project is a bit more complicated than the rest: you’ll need to use the transformers from a pair of microwaves to convert the electricity from your house into a current capable of forming an arc. But the effort is well worth it. With a couple of microwaves, pliers, carbon rods, and a block of firebrick, you can make a forge capable of melting just about everything imaginable.

However, all that power comes at the price of serious danger. This is easily the most dangerous item on this list. You’ll be dealing with electricity, extremely high temperatures, toxic fumes, and molten metal. Because of this, take appropriate safety measures. This project is not for the faint of heart.

Once again, Blasted Science has constructed their own version of this. However, it deserves more than just a mention in a list. Expect more information on our arc furnace in the future.

Just to prove we aren’t making this up

The post Top 5 More Household Items to Turn into Weapons appeared first on Blasted Science.

How to Use Electricity is an educational series of posts designed to help teach you practical applications of electricity in DIY projects.

If you read our last post in this series, you will have read this paragraph:

Learning about electricity can be overwhelming. The purpose of this series is to explain the fundamentals of electricity in a simple and practical way. Let’s get started.

But we don’t think we did a very good job. (“We” is the word “we” use when “we” want to spread the blame.) So we’re taking a step back.

Our last tutorial was a basic introduction to a practical use of electricity, but in retrospect, that probably wasn’t the best way to begin a tutorial series. Anyone who’s ever taken a high school physics class has a fairly solid understanding of electricity. So, with that fact in mind, we’re going to pretend you’re completely clueless and are going to start with explaining electricity at its most basic.

What is Electricity?

Science aside, electricity is can be one of two things: either it charges your phone or it makes some massive sparks that will permanently ruin flint and steel for you.

There are two broad categories of electricity: static and current.

Static

Static electricity is pretty cool, but we’re not going to talk about it. Here’s a tutorial by Nighthawkinlight that explains how to make a static electricity generator.

If you clicked a link to this post because you wanted to find out what static electricity is, you’re in the wrong place. The only possible project that uses it has already been made. And you just watched it.

Current

Current electricity refers to electrons moving (as opposed to static electricity, in which electrons stay in the same place and make your hair stand up). This nifty stuff has the look, taste, and consistency of lemonade.

A lithium-ion battery

The most notable use of current electricity is made possible by the walls of your house. As you probably already knew (because you’ve read our previous post), those little, circular wall outlets are responsible for everything from mowing your lawn to spreading the butter evenly over your second helping of toast. Essentially, you owe your life to these angels in disguise. However, at Blasted Science, we don’t care about life. We are much more interested in danger. And we’ll let you play along.

Experiment

Here’s a simple, educational project you can do at home:

1. Put on half a pair of thick leather gloves.
2. In your newly insulated hand, place a piece of wire.
3. Insert one end of the wire into the left hole of the wall socket (be careful not to let the wire touch your skin. This is what the glove is for.)
4. Stick the other end of the wire into the right hole of the wall socket.
5. Try not to flinch.

What can we learn from this project?

Electricity is roughly ten times more entertaining when used incorrectly. That figure is accurate to within a factor of ten, depending on how bright the sparks get. In this example, you probably saw a fairly bright, short-lived, blue spark accompanied by a loud popping sound.

Why did the spark go away?

If too much current tries to come out of the wall outlet, the power gets shut off. Placing the wire into both holes short-circuited the wall outlet, which then tried to draw way too much current. The current flows for a fraction of a second before the fuse box snapped the puny socket’s neck, in exactly the way a murderer in rehab wouldn’t.

Why did the power in half my house just go out?

As explained above, drawing too much power will shut off the current. Often, the power to the surrounding portion of your house will also be shut off.^{[citation needed]} At least, we’re pretty sure that happens. Honestly, that might not be the case at all. We’re too lazy to test it. To fix this, locate your fuse box, open it, and flip random switches until everything is working again. Save any open documents on your computer before trying this.

Are the gloves absolutely necessary?

Technically you only need one glove. But, yes, that glove is absolutely necessary. It’s also important to note that the glove needs to be on the hand that is holding the wire. Otherwise it’s possible that you’ll feel a mildly excruciating tingly sensation that causes some serious damage to your hand. Don’t you dare do this and try to sue us! You will get hurt. We do not advise trying this. Sarcasm can’t protect you from 120 volts. Also, we don’t have any money, so that would get awkward fast.

In conclusion

Ignorance is bliss, and we aren’t going to take that away from you.

The post How to Use Electricity: The Basics appeared first on Blasted Science.

Alternative energy

This is the first of an article series on totally wacky and sometimes reasonable alternative energy sources. Ocean energy is one of the reasonable ones. (I’m assuming you read Blasted Science for entertainment. If you’re actually trying to learn something, you should look elsewhere. Now shut up and read my chemistry essay article)

Fossil fuels are the backbone of our energy-guzzling society. Fossil fuels are also the backbone of a dinosaur. The term “fossil fuels” refers to a category of energy sources that are nonrenewable and mostly made of dead things. Coal, natural gas, crude oil, and dinosaurs are all examples of fossil fuels. For instance, the electricity being used by the electronic device you’re using to read this article was probably generated by a dinosaur.

As much as it pains me type, fossil fuels are running out. If this happens, power companies will have to resort to using large employee-powered hamster wheels to generate electricity. Obviously, we can’t let this happen! Hamsters and unions would violently protest. To avoid this nightmare scenario, we need to come up with ways of powering our gadgets without damaging fossils.

Ocean Energy

One unknown but fairly practical source of energy is our oceans. Since the Earth’s surface is around seventy percent water, you can collect it from almost anywhere and use it on a wide scale. There are three different types of ocean energy: wave energy, tidal energy, and ocean thermal energy conversion.

Wave Energy

Wave energy is produced by—you guessed it—waves. It is completely renewable, widely available, eco-friendly, and dinosaur-friendly. Produced by placing ship-like structures out in the ocean, these structures use their buoyancy to rise and fall with the waves. Then, they take the kinetic energy of the wave and convert it into electrical energy, much like the generators in the Hoover Dam. There are downsides though: it could affect the marine ecosystem, it’s dependent on wavelength, and could cause disturbances to other boats; commercial and private.

Wave Dragon

Tidal Energy

Tidal energy uses the kinetic energy of tides (not waves) and converts it into electrical energy. It’s renewable and can produce electricity on a large scale. Tides are also more predictable than waves, which probably affects something in some beneficial way. Although it follows the same principle of kinetic/electrical conversion, tidal uses a different approach. Instead of using the rising and falling of waves, it uses turbines, in similar fashion to windmills. Moving tides carry a lot of force. That, in turn, moves the turbines, which generate electricity. Although it can hurt the land, cause disturbances to boats, and chop up fish like kale in a vegan’s blender, compared to dinosaurs this option sounds positively heartwarming.

Tidal Energy “Tide Mill”

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion

Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC for short) is different than the others, obviously implying that it’s more useful (think Rudolph).  As the name implies, it converts the thermal energy of the ocean into electrical energy. This is how it works, the sun beams down onto the water, and as it sends energy into the ocean, it excites the water molecules, causing them to warm up. Then the machine (which looks a lot like an oil rig) takes the warm surface water and cold deep water into heat exchangers, which generate electricity. It is one of the continuously available renewable energy resources. It can potentially generate up to 88,000 terrawatt-hours/yr of power. There are two types of OTEC: open- or closed-cycle. Closed-cycle generators use refrigerant fluids, such as ammonia. These fluids have low boiling points and that makes them suitable for powering the generator. Open-cycle generators use sea water vapor to work as the fluid instead of the refrigerants.

OTEC Diagram

I think that Ocean energy could be the next big source of energy. It seems practical even though it may have some difficulties connected to it. Ocean energy can and will bring energy to everybody and everything. Say goodbye to dinosaurs. Welcome to the Future.

The post Alternative Energy: Ocean Energy appeared first on Blasted Science.

Learning about electricity can be overwhelming. The purpose of this series is to explain the fundamentals of electricity in a simple and practical way. Let’s get started.

What is Wall Power?

U.S. Wall Outlet

Also known as mains power, AC power, or household power, this refers to the electricity you get from those little wall sockets you plug everything into. Wall power is by far the most commonly used source of electricity for dangerous DIY projects. This is the only kind of electricity you’ll need to know about for anything Blasted Science does. In the United States, wall power is 120VAC at 60Hz, with a maximum current of 15A. That’s a lot of big numbers. We’ll go into more detail about what that means later in the series, but this essentially means three things about wall power:

• It can kill you.
• It can supply enough power for just about any project you can imagine.
• If you stick one end of a wire into both holes, there will be a big flash and the outlet won’t work anymore.

Thankfully, it’s easy to get the outlet working again. These days, it’s as easy as opening your fuse box and flipping a switch.

How to Use it

First things first: read our article on electrical safety. Now that you’re up to speed on the basic dangers of electricity, how do we even use it? We’ll need a cord that plugs into the wall socket, with the other ends exposed. The easiest way to hack this together is to find an old power cable or something similar and cut off one end with a railroad spike and hammer (or a pair of wire cutters). Inside the main cord there will be two or three smaller wires (Don’t worry about the one that plugs into the circular bottom hole, we won’t need it). Strip the ends of the smaller wires and you’ll have something like this:

You’re done! If you plug the cable into the wall and touch the two ends together, you’ll get some beautifully bright sparks and a blown fuse. This can already be used as a power supply for a number of projects, but it becomes far more useful with some additional parts. Later posts in this series will go into detail on what this can be used for. Stay tuned!

The post How to Use Electricity: Wall Power appeared first on Blasted Science.

Electricity is really cool. It can also be extremely dangerous. Obviously, this shouldn’t discourage you from playing with high-powered electrical devices. It’s a good idea to know what you’re getting into, though. When is electricity dangerous?

You could just go read this PDF, but should you really trust the government with your life? Blasted Science has plenty of experience with electricity. Trust us.

How Much is Lethal?

It takes a surprisingly small amount of electricity to kill you. According to Adam Savage, all it takes is 7 milliamps for three seconds. That’s tiny. An LED would barely light up with that amount of current. And since the internal resistance of the human body is about 300 ohms, it would only require 2.1 volts to kill. That’s only slightly more than a AA battery.

Fortunately, our bodies have one big protection to electricity: skin. Dry skin has a resistance of 100,000 ohms to 600,000 ohms. You might think this means that you’d need to be shocked with at least 3430 volts before your life is at risk, but it’s not that simple.

The above calculation applies only to dry skin. Wet skin is much more conductive. Voltages as low as 50 volts can be dangerous when your skin is wet.

Breakdown Voltage

At high voltages, skin loses most of its resistance and becomes much more conductive. As eplasty.com puts it,

At 500 V or more, high resistance in the outer layer of the skin breaks down. This lowers the body’s resistance to current flow greatly. The result is an increase in the amount of current that flows with any given voltage. Areas of skin breakdown are sometimes pinhead-sized wounds that can be easily overlooked. They are often a sign that a large amount of current could enter the body. This current can be expected to result in deep tissue injury to muscles, nerves, and other structures. This is one reason why there is often significant deep tissue injury little in the way of skin burns with high-voltage injuries.

Summary

In summary, the danger of electricity is highly variable. The best option is to play it safe. Exercise caution with any moderate to high voltage source. We’ve only scratched the surface of electrical dangers. There are many other factors that are beyond the scope of this article.

Does this mean you should avoid electricity at all costs? Of course not! Just don’t be stupid. At least, not as stupid as we are. Blasted Science has made some incredibly poor decisions with electricity in the past. It’s remarkable that we’re all still alive. Please don’t follow our example.

The post How to Avoid Being Killed by Electricity appeared first on Blasted Science.