Getting high voltage power from a relay and 9v battery
So, I wanted to power a neon NE-2 bulb. Just as a test. It takes about 95v to make the bulb light up.
I didn't feel like pulling out a huge power supply and setting things up. I stumbled across an easy relay type power supply.
This will supply continuous power or light, if you use two pins for the + leg of the bulb and two for the - side. However this is just a fun goof. The first part is just testing the relay and getting a single blink of light. Scroll to the bottom for the continue light.
All that's need to create 100v-200v is:
-A normally closed (NC) 5v relay that has a metal core and nice big wire windings.
-9v square battery
-Something to power/test, in this case an NE-2 neon bulb.
Smaller Reed relays also work!
Hopefully your relay will have nice, simple +/- markings on it like mine did:
I just wrapped the legs of the bulb onto the + and - pins. One leg around + and the other around -.
Then you just run wires from the square 9v battery to the correct legs:
I simplified it even further by getting rid of the black and red wires: I can just touch the battery terminals to the legs of the neon bulb and the relay fires and the light blinks:
In the above photo the two middle pins of the relay are + and -. I just wrapped the legs of the neon lamp bulb around them (didn't even solder).
If you reverse the +/- the light bulb lights up, but the relay doesn't click open and closed. If you use it the correct way and have a really loose touching of the wires and battery the relay will open and close so fast it will vibrate while blinking the light.
If you make a strong connection it will only blink once and then the light will go out.
This shorts out the battery so I didn't want to play with this connected too long. This would blow up an actual power supply!
I could probably insert this relay into any of the previous oscillating circuits I've built and have it fire this 100v bulb. Kind of nice to be able to easily use a beefy neon bulb instead of a dorky LED.
What's going on? How can a 9v battery give you over 100v?
The tiny voltage enters the relay and opens it; the magnetic field then collapses in the coil causing inductive kick-back of the higher (200v?) voltage; repeat.
Here is a newer Reed relay I pulled out of a broken PA system amplifier someone have me:
It made the light bulb blink, but even less than the bigger relay. Now, here's a trick to make it continuously power the bulb and the point of this post:
All you do is use all four pins for the bulb and add the power from the battery to the opposite side's corner pins. That feeds the power backwards through the relay.
Here's the pin-out for this relay:
The pins are numbered oddly. There are only 8 pins but the numbers aren't 1-8, LOL!
Pin 2 and 4 get one leg of the neon bulb.
Pin 5 and 7 get the other leg of the neon bulb.
Yes, two pins per bulb leg at the same time.
Positive battery to pin 11.
Negative battery to pin 14.
It will oscillate (vibrate) and light the bulb. It will actually blink it off and on very quickly (and loudly).
If the light just blinks, reverse the battery posts.
The Reed type newer relays won't light the bulb! They will oscillate though.
