In this video I'll show the technique of "Kirlian Photography", which uses corona discharge off a conductive object for imaging. The technique uses two clear glass plates with salt water between them. The salt water is connected to a high voltage, high frequency AC source. An AC flyback transformer works for this, but i got better results using a solid state tesla coil operating off a slayer exciter circuit - the same circuit i demonstrated in my previous video. This generates around 40,000 volts at 350 kHz with a 12V input.

The high voltage AC doesn't conduct through the glass, but causes high voltage charges to appear on the outside surface of the glass plates through capacitave coupling. Because glass is an electrical insulator, the charges can't move freely along the surface, so when an electrode connected to ground comes near the glass, the resulting discharge "fans" out, as charges from a relatively large area will jump to a single point electrode.

When a flat conductive object is pressed against the glass, the edges and small bumps on its surface will exhibit this type of discharge and glow purple. Since the glass plates and the saltwater are transparent, the resulting glow can easily be photographed.

This results in some extremely interesting and visually impressive effects, but is mostly limited to flat conductive objects like coins, keys, blades, etc.

I've seen some videos that use acrylic insulators for doing this - which I strongly advise against, because the discharges will heat up and melt the acrylic - leaving a permanent mark or even burning a hole through the sheet.

Also, if you want to do this project and you're building an AC flyback, be mindful of the secondary coil inductance and its resonant frequency. I found that by having an enormous turns ratio at a high frequency, the transformer operating frequency was actually well above the resonant frequency between the coil and any parasitic capacitance - which causes tremendous losses and erratic performance - this problem is avoided with the solid state tesla coil.


Music Used:

Serge Pavkin - To the Stars
Serge Pavkin - Atmospheric Ambient
Serge Pavkin - Andromeda
Serge Pavkin - Cosmic Glow