It seems fitting that the start of this video should be done with the illumination of neon light. Well, I say neon. It's a neon tube, but it is actually an Argan Mercury tube with a phosphor coating. and it could perhaps be powered by this ancient Mason light.

Uh, high voltage power supply that used a voltage multiplier to power tubes. And what's actually powering this tube right now is that little power supply over there. which is a version of that. But let's take a much closer look at this and let's reverse engineer it and draw out the schematic one moment.

please. Reverse engineering is complete I didn't even remove out the resin What? I did do however with this just prior to actually even starting this video I buffed the bottom of this because it was all matte and pitted I buffed the bottle and sandpaper, got it really finely uh, smooth and then put a thin layer of resin over it to make it more transparent. It just made it easier to get this picture here, but you can see there's still little bubbles encapsulated in it. I Shall move this tube carefully out the way.

It's very precious. It's so hard to get neon these days. I Know I can get the LED stuff, but nothing beats real neon for that proper glass neon look. I'm going to put that tube over there out of Harm's Way and then it shall go back into my new trip storage era where they are well protected.

Here's our little power supply. I Used. It's a very symmetrical. This one is not symmetrical.

This bothers me slightly, but that's just what happens with people like me. Symmetry is important. So rather than actually take out the resin, I took two pictures of this I took a picture from the printed circuit board to the track site and I took a picture from the other side. It's kind of hard to see what through this, but by looking at different angles and actually putting resin in the sides as well to make this very transparent.

I managed to deduce what most things were I Couldn't read the value on this resistor because it's been running hot. The resins cracked a bit around it. So I drilled one little hole here just to get down to the pad and the other one is going to this output connection. I Was able to measure the resistance that way.

Um, but really, this isn't going to be super clear. The diodes in this. it's a voltage multiplier. The diodes in this I couldn't see all of them.

Some of them are hidden under these big capacitors. So I had to work out what the circuit was and then work out which direction they were going which I did bring in. Uh, schematic. Here is the schematic.

Let's Zoom down this now Mason Lied I Don't think they're about anymore, which is a shame. They were an iconic company in Britain that made a lot of neon equipment including the electrodes the tubes. Let's make sure this is focused and crisp. so this is basically a voltage multiplier.

I'm pretty sure that in its original form it was a cast with the resin into a vac formed case and where I actually got this from it was from a shop window display and I never come across them before the shop in Glasgow a Big Shot retail outlet had these neon troops in the window in clear acrylic tubes that quietly leads onto them going to these plug-in power supplies and I wanted to know what they were. So I went in and asked a sales assistant and they pointed me over to one of who just happened passing it's it's a good coincidence one of the window dressers and he asked about him. he said oh follow me and I'll show you one. He took me up to the workshop and said uh these basically it's a neon tube and this thing puts out its Supply and he said you can have this one and the chip because it wasn't working and there's a reason it wasn't working which is quite interesting.

I managed to resurrect it and uh, they weren't going to mess around anymore. They tried to connect another power supply to a different tube and in the process one of their crew had got an electric shock. Uh, even when it was unplugged because this thing holds a bit of a zap when it's unplugged because it is a capacitive dropper. Uh, it turns out the tube had polarized, which is a really common thing with these with their DC supplies.

So here is the circuitry now: I'm going to make a change already. I'm going to scrub the L I'm going to put neutral there and I scrub the and there and put live because it makes more sense. That's how it's marked on here. I've written that one.

it used to have a label it I'm pretty sure. um, but uh, that means the live is going to these capacitors. which means that there's no direct path through the diodes. but this is basically two voltage multipliers.

We've got uh, the first one which gives the positive Supply via a 4.7 K resistor. that's the one I had to drill into measure and then we've got the other one that gives a negative supply to the other connection. And that just means that instead of having a more complex one big long multiplier, it just means that you can use Smart components and one generates positive. One generator is negative and uh, to drive the tube.

Things are very interesting about this. The big fact bastards. Here are one microfired capacitors uh, 400 volt and they are the first section capacitor in the voltage multiplier on the live side, but on the neutral side because it's then stepping up to 630 volts. Roughly well over 630 volts, about 660 volts.

They have two electrolytic capacitors in series. Now the it's kind of like that kind of threw me initially with a voltage multiplier because I'm not used to seeing electrolytics in voltage multipliers, but it works. Um, this one I'm guessing is push pull. This one is actually kind of pushing up.

so it was technically speaking, these are just this. from this stage this one may be seeing AC Is it seeing AC Maybe not actually because it's also got the diode. So um, anyway, that the way I did it I actually kind of used it this way I know it didn't I On my own design that is covered in a different video now I'm just rambling in different directions. but to get the voltage rating of that, they've used 450 volt capacitors at 2.2 microfire to give a total of 1.1 microfarad.

and then after that this is the bulk of the supply for the tube because with just it's only designed for a few feet of tube. so the voltage Cross isn't going to be massive and so this will charge up to say about 600 volts. this will charge up to 600 volts. That gives over a thousand volts to actually, uh, run the tube.

but striking it's done with another two stages and it's I Don't know can you see in the little uh ceramic disc capacitors? Very low value, but all they are doing. they're not really dealing with much of the current. all they're doing is just pushing the voltage off a bit to help the tube strike. So there's a couple hours side to add another thousand or so volts onto the top of that and once it strikes, the current will take the shortest route which is probably from these electrolytic capacitors via the diode and then through that resistor.

The resistor is a ballast. Without it, the tube would try to draw too much current. It drops a fair voltage across. that spy has probably been running quite hot.

Um, but uh. It also kind of means that as the polarity changed, the means and the voltage multiplier gives another boost so to speak. It means that this will limit the current to actually hold the tube on like it's kind of. The main thing is it's limited to the current through the tube.

That's that's all that really matters there. The other thing here, this word to mention is that the discharge resistors which you know you can still get a Zing off it because largely because of these little capacitors. but these ones with a modest land, the time will fully discharge, but you'd have to leave it unplugged for a while. and they are quite high value at 4.7 Mega.

And there's a 33 Ohm resistor in series just to avoid the inrush current, just to limit the inrush current to protect diodes and capacitors. All the diodes are classic 1n4007 one amp diodes. Uh, that's about all there is to say about it. Let's Zoom back out.

Um I'm trying to remember now. What? I did I think I just did uh make these that won't make fart for an evoked pastors my own power supply. Where is it? Let me grab it. This thing probably does still have a charge in it, so let me just, uh, hike this out and double check what I've got here.

I've got the that one's going there, that one's going over there, that's going there. Neutral is going through that live is going straight to this capacitor so they are just in the first uh stage of that. Uh, interesting. That also worked very well.

Um, but that is it. Uh, a really interesting. It was often found in things like a signage with just a little splash of neon where they didn't really want too much. Um, it was found in things like uh, a different version of it was found in picture frame Neon Lights where you'd have a Hollywood scene and then there'd be a strip of neon along the edge of the bar and uh, it was also used in the ceramic base or plastic bases.

With this shape, you know, the ones that you'd get the LED Cactus and stuff like that. These days when they were done with neon, it was often one of these inside it and it does cause polarization of the tube. Gradually, the Mercury will go uh from one end to the other and when it does that, you can either shake the bit of mercury back or you can actually reverse the output polarity and it'll start running the American in the opposite direction. It's one of the small downsides to these power supplies, the upside being well, particularly the non-potted ones.

They're super simple and you can literally just swap components them to repair them. There's no Phantom to Transformers but that is a it a DC Neon Power Supply. Now was it Mason like that made this or was it just bought in and batched by them? I'm not really sure. They were definitely not a very adventurous and interesting company.

But there we have it: the Uh voltage multipliers and they're useful. I'll just take out the way there so it doesn't block the schematic because the schematic is quite important here. but voltage multipliers in your use as a cheap and easy way of driving neon troops. Noting that this was mainly for Europe so 220 to 240 volt.

but interesting stuff.