Did you spot my enormous boo-boo? In the video I suggested that in 200V+ countries the dropper capacitor could be changed to a 470uF one. I actually meant 470nF and did test it afterwards, with the unit operating as intended, but at half the power.
Assuming you could find a 470uF 400V non polarised capacitor that even remotely fitted in the case, the result of installing it would be brief, loud and hilarious. And result in the instant demise of most of the circuitry. (Which is probably what it deserves anyway.)
I've got a few random ionisers that seem to have been designed by people with no grasp of the science. Even the respectable Mountain Breeze brand experimented with adding pointless gimmicks like variable output control. In reality, the ioniser module could be left powered all the time, as that is how they are intended to be used.
Ionisers put an electrostatic charge into the air that causes fine particulate dust to take on a charge and then precipitate to any adjacent ground referenced surface, including materials you wouldn't really consider as being grounded. They make a huge mess in the process, but have the advantage of being virtually silent and extremely low power.
Unfortunately the quackery surrounding them in the past has given them a bad reputation. But you can prove they work by simply placing one on a sheet of white paper and running it. Within days the paper will be visibly darker where uncovered due to the precipitation of particulates from the air. Most ionisers do produce a very low trace level of ozone that is nowhere near the level present in fresh outdoor air. That trace level poses no health risk and has potential advantages in ambient odour, mould and bacteria control.
This unit has followed the common approach of taking proven technology and adding pointless features as a sales gimmick. From the pointless on/off button to the ramping green LED that dips out and in around every 40 seconds, these features just reduce reliability. The green LED probably means that the unit will be turned off when it should be left active all the time.
I specifically avoid using intrusive mid-run video adverts, which means I don't earn as much from my content as other YouTubers.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar or two for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:-
https://www.patreon.com/bigclive
Patreon supporters get early access to videos as they are made, and also regular live streams.
This also keeps the channel independent of YouTube's advertising algorithms allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty.
Other contribution options are available at:-
http://www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm
#ElectronicsCreators

It's time to look at another ionizer, a pink ionizer, obviously, and one that is slightly perplexing, because normally an ionizer works by applying a high voltage charge i'll just dump that out the way complete with instructions are just stereotypical. It doesn't mention anything about its operation. It just basically says if it bursts into flames: unplug it something like that, but an ionizer. Typically, when you plug it in usually has a little tuft of carbon fibers, pointing out the front or metal spikes point at the front, and it puts a high negative voltage on those spikes or fibers, and it puts electrostatic charge into the air and that results in Fine dust precipitating out there.

This is odd because, when you plug it in the bristles are actually pointing directly at the wall, which means it's about that far from the wall, and it is effectively going to just basically create an ionic short circuit to the wall. That could have unusual extra effects. That might be quite useful. Now let me bring up the hockey the hoppy is still here.

I just want to reassure people that, because uh i got another one that was supposed to be the more accurate version, but they've sent me the wrong version and since it's aliexpress there's no chance of ever that, getting that sorted plugging it in it says 77 milliamps. 0.6 watts uh, it's not even on the moment, there's a button. This is pointless in an ionizer, you press the button, the green light gently goes up and it theoretically starts ionizing. Let me just double check that it is ionizing.

The way to find this out is to get a meter set it to about 20 volts. Stick the uh one of the lead to ground. Well i'll! Stick it onto the soldering station here and stick the other lead in front of that little tuft and you should see a high negative voltage and well it's pretty much off the scale. It's pretty good! Actually, that's pretty good uh you're, seeing quite a high negative voltage without me, even touching the fiber emitter, because it is basically creating electrostatic charge in the air good results.

So far, uh power factor is 0.034, which is terrible. That actually suggests the capacitive dropper. All the button does is off and on with a it, just gently positive modulates that light just ramps up and switches the ionizer module on enough. Let's open it, that's what you're here for suitable screwdriver screw number one and screw number two.

I did get it in fetching pink just in case it is dangerous uh. The whole reason for the pink is just because it's quite funny when things are electrically dangerous and they're pink, it just adds an element of amusement to it. The front has fallen off with its little captive button. Here is the circuit board, with a big fat capacitor suggest the capacitor dropper with the high voltage output right against that i don't really fancy that much um right.

Tell you what i'm going to take a picture of this there's a little ionizer module right i'll, take a picture of this and we'll reverse engineer it and see what the circuitry is like one moment, please resume with exploring this very long thin circuit board, so things Worth mentioning on the back of the circuit board are a fusible resistor, 20 ohm we've got the dropper capacitor, which has been grossly oversized at one micro farad to give it a wide voltage range, so it can be used all around the world. In reality, that's putting a lot of stress on the little zener diode here, but i'll cover that in a moment the module is just stuck in the back. There is a little electrolytic, 470 microfarad capacitor and the connections this case has just the metal pins going in and to connect onto them is not soldered directly they've actually used these little connectors that are designed to go in a circuit board and when the circuit board Is put into the case it basically slides over those pins, but instead of that they've soldered wires on press them over the pins and then they've hot melt glued them in place. It's not a bad thing.
The incoming supply goes via that resistor over to the bridge. Rectifier the live goes via the capacitor in the back with its discharge resistor, and that gives the rectified output, which then simply goes across the electrolytic coupler capacitors and the zener diode w8 senior drive rated 0.2 watts, but actually being used at 0.4 watts, which is not So great gets quite hot that then provides a stable, 5 volt-ish supply for everything, including the little microcontroller and the module that is in the back, but actually connected with these two connections. Here that there's not much else to say, i shall show you the schematic for this. That's the best bet, so here's the supply come in.

There's a drop capacitor. If you have one of these and you lived in a 200 upwards volt country, i'd recommend changing that from 400 from one microfarad to 470 microfarad, because that would result in much less dissipation from this little zener diode or zener diode, as some people prefer. Here's a 20 ohm fusible resistor draw a little line through that because it is kind of fusible as well as the resistor there's a bridge rectifier. There is the power supply, which is just two ceramic capacitors, a electrolytic capacitor and a 5.1 volt zener diode.

There's the mysterious microcontroller it has the button input connecting to the zero volt rail when so, when you click it, it just basically pulls that pin low and it's got the little led. That does the fancy thing. It's the most fancy thing it does. It ramps that little green led up.

It's got a 470 ohm resistor in series which i calculated gives about 5 milliamps through that, then this splodgy mess here is because i thought that it was just going to be an npn transistor, because this module only takes 20 milliamps. I've tested it in reality. They've used a mosfet here, just possibly what they had. They could have used a generic npn transistor strange that they've used that, but it's also got a foreign resistor, which also alludes to it.
Being an ordinary npn transistor. There is a zero ohm link. I'm not sure why they have a zero ohm link. There strange there is there and it's going from between the positive rail and that maybe it was to tame it down in some way or maybe they.

I don't know why they used that and then there's a 1k resistor across the module, the high voltage module and then it's just a little spike with the negative ionization. I'm not sure what the 1k resistors for is it to provide a stable load for the transistor. Given this is a pulsing electronic load, shouldn't really be needed, or is it a little uh decoupling resistor across that for back emf, spikes, which i wouldn't really expect, because the first thing that's you're going to hit in that module is a capacitor, probably maybe even via A diode very strange lots of little extra features, but this zener diode gets up to about 67 degrees celsius, which is quite hot. I mean it's not mega hot, but it's still hot enough.

The 20 ohm resistor at the input got up to 41 degrees celsius. This resistor here, which is a fairly generous size, got up to 470, should, i say, not 470 degrees, celsius, 45 degrees celsius which isn't negligible. It's fine also worth mentioning the discharge. Resistor is a good high value across that capacitor and it's a fairly big beefy one for surface mount aspect.

So it's not too bad. Let's take a look at that in the flesh. Yeah, it's quite big they've not used the tiniest they could as many others do. So.

That's it to be honest. They could get rid of all that they could just got rid of that and they could have just slapped that straight across the supply and uh it, because you don't need to turn an ionizer on and off. You plug it in the wall and you leave it on now. Here's an interesting thing if you have well i'll just i'll doodle this on another page turn the page over and doodle so at the moment - and i shall zoom out for this.

If you have this plugged into the wall, you would normally, if this is the wall, i'll just draw it like that, a general ground plane, even if it's plasterboard or sheetrock, it will still be relatively well grounded. So you might have a socket on the wall and this is plugged into it. And then here is the ionizer module normally you'd, either of the bristles coming out the top or usually out the front so to put the negative charge into the air. But the fact they've actually got it just protruding out the back, creating a dead, an ionic short circuit uh to what is effectively a grounded surface.

Even if it's a insulating material at the voltages we're talking about the ionization, it will have that effect. I'm just going to tame this down a bit, but what that does pose an interesting thing here, because it does create an ionizing short circuit. You might get a slight corona discharge on these needles because of the high current flow and that will result in trace levels of ozone, as opposed then that if this thing does warm up very slightly, it's not really going to warm up that much, but it could Create an airflow past and that could just basically add a tiny trace of ozone into the room. It's odd! It's a strange design.
It's almost like they just copied things and did what they thought was the right thing and it's just odd. Definitely the on off button and a microcontroller just basically to turn this on and off and like an led just seems odd, because really you should just unplug it from the wall when you don't need it, but an ionizer draws so little power that you can just Leave it plugged in all the time the module itself i'll get the kink calculator for this. I measured it at about 22 milliamps, 0.022 milliamps at 0.022, amps 22 milliamps times the voltage it's operating at is 5 volts. The module itself only draws 0.1 of a watt.

So uh by the time they've finished with it, the zener diode is dissipating a lot more than the module itself can significantly more that's very strange, but then again this is no surprise strange, pink things from china, but there we have it uh, a strange ionizer that Points the wrong direction and has an on off button for no good reason that is it quite interesting, a fairly neat design inside but seemingly completely and utterly pointless.

12 thoughts on “Perplexing pink high voltage thing with schematic”
  1. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Jason Kuehl says:

    I wonder if that board and case was built for something else and someone decided to create an ionizer from it.

    As a side note, my dear wife bought me a ultrasonic mister in "BigClive pink". For some reason, it puts out more mist and the battery lasts longer than an identical unit in white. Poor quality control, or the amazing power of all things pink? Probably the former, but I prefer to think it's the latter. 😆

  2. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Spehro Pefhany says:

    "That's what you're here for". Yes. Ironically the highest power dissipation for the poor Zener diode is when it's turned off.

  3. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars gazzaka says:

    I used to think having the same momentary button for ON and OFF was the height of sophistication and elegance ! And the king of Sweden gave her all she was needin' !

  4. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Ragetist says:

    If pink adds element of amusement on dangerous thing, I wonder if it's the reason why old ladies dress their chihuahuas in said color 🤔

  5. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars weasel box says:

    but srsly tho clive us ladies buy the pink things and wonder why things melt in the wall socke6ts. even if we think we are using them correctly. and here you give the lovely answer why. ….awe thank you. : o )

  6. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars JendaLinda says:

    This device has an EU plug and European sockets are actually recessed in the wall, so the electrode will be probably touching the wall.

  7. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Janus Kobain says:

    I kinda wish people plug it into their lowest outlet with two or three more above it — so other holes will be in direct vicinity of the ionizer output.

  8. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars linuxgreybeard says:

    Not sure if the designers had this in mind, but many power sockets will have the supply cabling run vertically into the socket, possibly even surrounded by an earthed metal conduit. I'm not sure how well building materials would act when presented with a frontal Corona discharge especially when the module is supplied via a capacitive dropper. This device may actually might fall into the "Perilous Pink" category, especially if a discharge successfully made its way to Live or Earth.

  9. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars WesDoesStuff says:

    So I had just bought one of these to try and deodorize something I bought that came from a smokers house. This module hardly puts out anything. I have it sitting in a box on an extension cord and it doesn't put out a noticeable amount of Ozone. Any ideas to overclock it?

  10. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars WhiteDieselShed says:

    Any decent 12v ionisers? Have a car that smells musty even after swapping out the pollen filter and making sure the vents are free of leaves etc. Also got a car that smells of dog so hoping an ioniser will help with that smell. Needs to be 12v though not 240v. Seen so many of Clives videos on ionisers I have forgotten which one he said that worked and which were junk.

  11. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Johnny Dingo says:

    I saw "pink high voltage thing" and my mind immediately pictured some kind of advanced Japanese pixelated toy. maybe it's time to cut back.

  12. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars szabcsababcsa says:

    To be honest, i dislike calling these things ionizers, because in reality, they charge air particles statically way more than they ionize the air( wich is a good thing). Maybe staticator would be a better (and slightly funnier) name for them

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.