Electrostatic Accelerator Inside Garden Funnel

A cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator which accelerates charged particles in a spiral trajectory. The device (not a 'real' cyclotron) displayed here accelerates ten 0.25"-diameter (about 0.64cm) aluminum balls in a circular, spiral, and elliptical trajectories, inside an 8"-diameter plastic funnel. The geometry of the funnel serves the function that magnets would in a real cyclotron, i.e., keeping the balls in orbit.

The balls are accelerated by a DC electric field with a potential of 12KV. Three of the radial aluminum strips (electrodes) are positively charged and the other three are negatively charged, where each strip has the opposite polarity of the one adjacent to it. The specific diameters of the funnel and balls were selected so as to allow a constellation of ten balls to form a swarming effect while minimizing the probability of shorting the circuit when the balls happen to line up between adjacent electrodes.

Each ball requires a minimum 'escape velocity' in order to rise above the white base track at the bottom of the funnel. Once a ball is off the base by gaining potential energy, it requires less energy to remain in its trajectory.

Some balls were deliberately injected into the funnel in the opposite direction of already-spinning balls in order to induce collisions and create interesting effects.

Few words about the electrical interaction: When the aluminum strips are electrified and an electrically-neutral, 0.64cm-diameter, ball is at rest at the bottom of the funnel, it is polarized by induction by the nearest aluminum-strip electrode.

Assume the polarized ball is attracted to a positive aluminum strip. When this 0.64cm-diameter ball is within the breakdown air-gap of 1.2cm (about 0.47") for 12KV, from this electrode, it is immersed in a positive plasma well, becomes a positive monopole (most likely before it even contacts the electrode), and is repelled by the electrode.

Unlike in a real cyclotron with electrons and where the electric field switches at radio frequency, here, each ball flips polarity each time it contacts an electrode and transfers its charge from one electrode to the other. This transfer of charges (current flow) is the electrical energy provided by the high-voltage power supply for the mechanical rotation of the balls.

Forces Acting on the Balls: Each ball moves in a circular motion and constantly accelerates towards the axis of rotation. The acceleration is the result of the centripetal force which is equal and opposite to the centrifugal force that the ball exerts on the surface of the funnel which originated the centripetal acceleration.

Watch how tiny balls form chains that behave like living worms in Petri dish with high voltage:

[sirishraju]

how do you generate the 12kv dc supply? i have major doubts on that. please reply asap. 

Thank you

[AmiVarsano]

April 14, 2015 Reply to comment posted by Sirish Raju: I replied to your comment via YouTube message because there was no reply button for your comment (comment made on former version of YouTube).