Ionizer

Presumably you are trying to ionize air?
If so, how will it ionize air if there is plexiglass between the meshes? Maybe it will try to ionize the plexiglass?
I wouldn't mess with 7kv unless you are feeling like an early demise, or you have plenty of experience at those voltages.
Del

i guess i should seperate the wire mesh with insulaters instead of plexiglass. what distance should i space the mesh?

You could try to build one yourself, but the result might not be what you expect.

Since you asked the question, it means you don't have a great deal of experience with high voltage design. My suggestion is NOT to play with this. A neon sign transformer has more than enough voltage, current, and energy to kill you very quickly. Buying an ionizer that has the proper safety features is a much better choice.

what size do you think the wire mesh should be and the spacing. i'ld like to get it right the first time for obvious reasons.

Ionocrafts are essentially "lifters" that get their lift by ionizing the air around them. If you want a good explanation of how air ionization occurs and works you might look into that research.

But the answer is no, the HV mesh needs to be surrounded by air to ionize it. You are using plexiglass as a dielectric when it should be air. Spacing of the two meshes effects the ionization results dramatically.

With that being said, don't mess with it. Curiosity didn't hurt the cat, it killed it.

Ionization you will get allright. S.M.

Please tell us where you are so that we don't mistake the upcoming disaster with the Hadron Collider malfunctioning.

just to make life interesting,

thanks. that's the informationthat i was looking , and thanks to all the people that are concerned about my well being, i would'nt have asked unless i have some basic knownlege of high voltage. duh

Very nice and a GA. The OP may have heard some HV guys discussing their ozone machines (a.k.a. Marx generators, Tesla coils, Jacobs ladders, etc.) and misconstrued the duplicity.

I'll agree with most of this, but just for the sake of accuracy I'll point out that there is no such thing as an air molecule. Air is made up almost entirely of oxygen and nitrogen, with a small amount of CO2, possibly some water vapour, and traces of other gases. Oxygen, nitrogen, CO2 and water can all be broken to produce ions.

Yes you are absolutely right of course - definitely not the same as say, a water molecule.

What I actually meant was "molecules of the component gases that make up air" - It's a habit from years of trying to simplify quite a complex subject into something a lay-person (our customers) could vaguely understand.

I've personally, never thought of air as anything but a mixture - I just assumed everyone else knew it too. Thanks for pointing that out.

thanks. great info.

Kudos to some-bloke since he succintly put the idea everyone else has, do it and maybe end up fried.

Read this manual about ion generators. No endorsement meant. It explains the whys and hows of ion generators.

http://www.ramseyelectronics.com/

Yes this is dangerous.

The 7.5kV neon sign transformer from a neon sign shop may cost $60. Then put a light dimmer on the input of the transformer. With a multimeter you can read the input voltage and calculate the output voltage of the transformer. If you put small diameter wires pointed at each other at a gap of 5/8 inch at about 3500 volts at sea level to 1,000 ft you will have corona sizzling. The wire's will immedeiately turn to balls of metal if you increase the voltage and arcing starts. A pair of #12 wire with this starter gap and gap increasing to about two inches will become a Jacobs Ladder. The faster the gap opens and the higher the voltage the quicker the arc runs up and extinguishes and a new one starts. Remember the arc is a plasma and will burn anything it touches, the energized wires are Dangerous. There is also no current control or safety except the line breaker which may be 20 amps, your heart stops at 4 milli-amps (arm to arm). This is AC, it works the same with a DC power supply (more expensive). Slight winds can extinguish or prevent corona from forming.

With a 15kV neon sign transformer...

If you had aluminum foil stretched to the edges of the 1/2" thick plexiglass you could have a larger surface area (the 1/2" side) in corona.

It is not recommended to be in the dark with an energized HV power supply, without the proper safety equipment.

The human eye takes about 15 minutes in an entirely dark room to see strong corona, up to 3 hours to reach maximum sensitivity in the dark. Some night vision scopes have a "lobe" in the UV, although corona is visible from just above x-ray thru near infrared, with the strongest at 320nm in the UV.

This does answer your question. Safety is up to you !