HOW TO DISABLE FORD PATS ANTI-THEFT SYSTEM KEY CHIP
Ford (and many other) vehicles have a transponder chip
inside their physical keys. This is sometimes called PATS or VATS.
This only worked because I had a working key (with a chip transponder in it) that can start my car. I guess it's less "disable" and more "how to make $1.50 copies of my $200 keys that will start my car instead of just unlocking the doors".
A replacement key is around $150-$200 from a dealer, $80
from a locksmith. You can get a blank (with a chip) and use your car to program
that blank’s internal transponder IF YOU HAVE TWO OTHER WORKING KEYS WITH
TRANSPONDERS IN THEM. One of my keys is now old and the plastic base is
cracking so I’m afraid to stick it in the ignition in case if breaks off in
there.
I went to the hardware store and got a $1.75 copy key made.
It does NOT have a transponder in it, so all it could do was unlock my vehicle’s
door. It wouldn’t start the vehicle. I could turn the ignition with it, but not
actually make the car start because there was no transponder chip.
If I held my real Ford key touching the cheap copy key in a
certain way I could get the cheap copy to actually start my vehicle. It is very
awkward to do, and then I’m still carrying around my cheap copy key and my
cracked and about to fall apart real key with the transponder.
I could go to a Ford dealer and pay $200 and get a second real
key with a transponder—which would then let me get a slightly cheaper uncoded
transponder key and use both the real Ford keys to program the third. But I found
a cheaper way online and tweaked the bypass method to make it easy.
It takes
less than 10 seconds to install/uninstall.
All I did was wrap a 6’ long wire around the real Ford key
(with the transponder in it).
I made 10 wraps around the Ford key and secured it with two
pieces of tape so it wouldn’t uncoil.
I then joined the bared wire ends together so that the wire
was a loop. For kicks I hit that joint with a dab of solder.
This gave me a real key with a transponder in it hanging
from a loop of wire. I went into my car and wrapped the wire twice around the
part of the ignition that spins when you turn the key to start the car.
The wire loops sort of just tucked themselves in and disappeared
inside that spinning ignition part. Nice! Then I stuck in my fake copy key
(which has no transponder) and the vehicle started right up.
Then I tucked the dangling real Ford key into a space in the
dashboard above the steering column because in the column or in the dash beneath the steering column has metal plates and wires that wouldn't let this work due to interference!
My finger is pointing where the key is tucked behind. Everywhere else had interference. I used red wire so it would be visible, I'll probably redo it in black. Although you can't see the red wire from the driver or passenger seat. If you look where the red wire is going on: the key for in there nicely BUT HAD INTERFERENCE SO THE CAR WOULDN'T START... MOVE OUT 3 INCHES HIGHER WHERE MY FINGER IS POINTING AND THE CAR STARTS.
I pushed the key down through the top of thet plastic bezel between the speedometer glass and the top of the steering wheel.
Then I pulled the wires through the rubber gasket that surrounds where the steering wheel column goes into/under that bezel.
Spend $6 and made 3 more fake no transponder keys for backups.
Instead of $270 I spent less than $10 and less than 5 minutes on this. The
hardest part was finding a wire that was long enough out of my junk bin.
WARNING: I’ve seen a LOT of online tutorials that say you
have to disassemble the steering column and/or dashboard. These people look
under the steering column and all say the same thing “There are 4 holes, but
only 3 have screws in them”. They then say to take out those 3 screws which is
WRONG!!! The 4th hole with no
screw is an ignition release!! Jab a screwdriver in there and gently pull out
the ignition. Duh! Although, I didn’t take anything apart, I just loop the
wire twice around where the spinning ignition part meets the steering column.
No need for any screwdrivers.
If you do pop out the ignition from the steering column you can see a round ring that is the antenna to detect the chip inside your real key. Crack open your real key, take out the chip, superglue it on/near that antenna and any old (non-chip) key will work but things inside the column can interfere with the chip as stated before, you could probably jam a screwdriver into the ignition instead of a key and it would start up.
The best part: just yank on the wire and unloop it from
around the ignition and it’s disconnected. It still works as a regular key; and because I didn't go crazy with the electrical tape holding the 10 loops around the key together it still (barely) fits in the ignition.
WARNING: if this
is on the vehicle it’s reading the transponder from the real Ford key. If I try to start the vehicle with another real Ford key (because I finally found
a spare) the car won’t start supposedly, however my real key and my fake keys all work. Just don't test all your keys in quick succession because you'll put the car into key code program mode. The antitheft system will see BOTH keys and
get confused.
One real key with this setup tucked into the UPPER dash + a second real key at a relatives house for safe keeping + a bunch of cheap $1.50 copies.
This works with induction (coils of wire). There are very
similar devices on Amazon for $10 but they want you to tap them into the 12volt
system of the car for some reason. My
way doesn’t physically connect to the vehicle’s electronics in any way. I
just looped it around the real key 10 times and the spinning part of the
ignition twice. Worked the first time and every time after that. Both ends of the wire have to touch each
other or it won’t work—they have to be a loop. I wonder: if I put a simple
on/off switch in the loop would it act as a kill switch? I think it would! That’s
a future project.
I’m doing this for fun, the Blue Book Value of my vehicle is
less than $3000 and it’s 18 years old so…I’m not terribly worried about theft.
What would be the odds that a car thief would say “Hmmm…that vehicle over there came from the factory with anti-theft key
chip transponders but I have this psychic sense that the owner did that famous antitheft
defeat thing. I think I’ll smash the window and try and jiggle a screwdriver
around in the ignition for a while trying to start it on the one in a zillion
odds he did that.”
Things I used:
A working Ford key with build in chip transponder that
starts the vehicle by itself.
Cheap $1.50 hardware store copy that will unlock the doors
and allow you to spin and try and start the vehicle, but won’t let the vehicle
actually start (just a bunch of bells and blinking lights on the dash).
6 to 8 feet of thin wire that has rubber insulation on it
(so I don’t short out anything when tucking it in to the ignition
Knife/wire stripper to remove insulation at both ends of
the wire.
Two pieces of duct tape or electrical tape to hold the 10
loops around the real key together
For kicks I soldered the ends together, but I could have
just twisted them together and taped it up.
The people at the hardware store were like “we can’t copy a car
key with a fancy chip in it…because our crappy $2 copy has no chip inside, it’s just
a key…BUT we can make a cheap copy that will still unlock your door in case you
lock your real key inside. That way you can keep the cheap copy in your wallet! It will also turn inside your ignition in case you want to unlock your steering column/wheels to get a tow truck ride.”
I was like, oh, OK I don't want to argue. Then I did this trick and it’s all good.
My car is 18 years old and I don’t have theft insurance on
it anymore (saving like $400 a year) so it’s all good. I’ve heard some car
companies won’t pay out if your car gets stolen because you left the key
inside. If that were the case I’d tuck the real Ford key way deeper into the interior somewhere deep, possibly using a longer wire…or I’d pop the
little rectangular hatch open on the real Ford key and slide out the chip,
which is tiny and even easier to conceal. Maybe even superglue that tiny chip onto the spinning part of the ignition so it's always there. Plus, it’s not a “key” left in the
ignition either way. I dunno.
TO the left is my real, from the factory Ford key with the chip transponder in it. The wire is wrapped 10 times around it and the wraps are held in place with some black electricians tape.
The bare ends of the wire are just twisted together. The wire is now in a "loop" with no breaks in it.
To the right is the part I just wrap twice around the spinning ignition thingy that you turn to start the car. Just two or three loops around.
In the center is the tiny, light, thin $1.50 cheap fake copy key. It has no chip inside of it. Normally it will only unlock my doors and it will also try to start my engine but fails because the antitheft kicks in.
Wrap, wrap around the ignition; tuck the real key into the upper dash (or let it hang loose). Good to start!
My next project might be to remove the transponder chip from the real key and superglue it to the turning part of the ignition. No wires.
Here's a phase portrait of a beautiful single scroll chaotic attractor from my oscilloscope! I was able to also confure up a multiple scroll attractor and also a teeny-tiny double scroll illustrating the classic chaotic circuit output. A Strange Attractor is when a bounded chaotic system has some kind of long term pattern that isn’t a simple periodic oscillation or orbit.
Here is how two superimposed attractors form the famous double-scroll attractor:
Here is a video:;
Nice Mobius strip attractor, the only possible attractors in this pattern are limit cycles:
Here is a multile limit cycle attractor as it adds more ovals to become a single scroll chaotic attractor.
My oscilloscope settings for my "newer" scope. There is a progression from steady state to limit cycle to chaos and bifurcation. Steady state is a dot; an oval signifies a 1 period limit cycle; multiple overlapped ovals show 2 or 3 or 4 limit cycles; once the ovals are plentiful and have a sort of inverted rounded pyramid shape (like mine above) it's a single scroll chaotic attractor. The famous double scroll chaotic attracot can have two appearances depending on your setup and equipment: the single chaotic attractor with some extra, lighter ovals underneath it; or sort of a figure 8 shape.
The circuit build is towards the bottom of this post. Chua's Circuit is basically an oscillator that outputs waveforms that never repeat: chaos! Chua's Circuit is the simplest circuit that can output real chaos. Chaos in the form of a double swoosh set of circles on an oscilloscope screen. This waveform is called an attractor, which demonstrates chaos in a continuous time dynamical system...I like the idea of a waveform generator / oscillator that never repeats. A continuouly evolving, periodic output that never repeats: chaos! What defines chaos in a system like this: extreme sensitivity to initial conditions; cause and effect are not proportional; and it is nonlinear. This circuit will also display bifurcation: small, smooth changes lead to a sudden huge change in the system. Tuning a silent radio with a knob that you're barely moving, you keep trying to nudge the timing knob and you all of a sudden loud music starts playing. Or slowly as possible applying more pressure to a mousetrap until it springs shut. The straw that broken the camel's back. We will make it less simple by replacing the supposedly hard to find, but definatly hard to choose thet correct value for inductor-with a gyrator circuit which acts as an ideal inductor. Just a couple extra cheap parts and it still works.
First off when looking at schematics to build your very own Chua Circuit you need to ignore 99% of the useless schematics out there. The schematics you'll see are for explaining this circuit, but not building it. Here is an example of the classic circuit...that doesn't tell you what you need to know:
You will see on the left side an "L". That denotes a simple 18mH inductor. These inductors are sort of hard to find. You could try and swap in and out various 18mH inductors with less than 30 ohms resistance and play around with that. They are pricey and might not be exactly the spec your circuit needs to operate. We will replace the "L" with a TL082 op-amp acting as a gyrator inductor simulator. It works like an inductor (in this circuit at least) and operates ideally. Simple! The gyrator is known as "The Fifth Linear Element" and basically couples voltage from one source to the current from a different source...and then does the same with the remaining devices' current and voltage. Once working I plan on replacing the gyrator with an actual inductor, since I just found a pile of different sized ones in a drawer. An actual inductor will add parasitic resistance that will have to be counteracted in the circuit. You will see on the right side of the circuit "NR". That is Chua's Diode...except that there is no such thing as a Chua Diode. You can't buy one in a store, you have to make it. Luckily we can make our own Chua Diode using a second TL082 op-amp. There are versions of this circuit which leave the inductor and replace this Chua diode with a memristor, but it involves more potentiometers (knobs) than this way. You will soon learn of my hatred for wiring pots. Anyway Chua’s diode has nothing in common with a diode; it has a non-linear voltage-current characteristic that makes the oscillator output “unrepeatable”.
Then we'll add in some resistors, capacitors (use metal film, not carbon, for best results), a couple of knobs (potentiometers), and a DC power supply instead of two 9v batteries oddly wired together in many of the circuit designs. The only other fancy "thing" I've made has been a scanning tunneling electron microscope. This project is very similar in that it used op-amps and the x, y and z inputs on an old oscilloscope. Because this is low voltage you can use a PC computer-based oscilloscope without blowing stuff up-as long as it can handle 9vDC. However if you use a modern fancy standalone digital oscilloscope the swooshing waves of the the output (a Chaotic Attractor) turns into swarms of ugly dots that are really hard to interpret. After the annoyance with the schematic above I became annoyed with the build schematics I found for one simple reason: they show 4 triangles that are op-amps. So, I assumed I needed four op-amps, but the TL082 is a double-op-amp: each black box with 8 legs (pins) sticking out actually has twotriangles inside of it. Four triangles on the schematic = two TL082 op-amps. Nice. Also, the schematic didn't label the triangles as being A/B pairs. Which I'm not used to. So, when I scribble out my diagrams I'm labeling them A and B. One A/B triangle pair is a single TL082. This will make total sense once you read the next few lines and check the pinouts. So, the first thing to get straight is the op-amp circuits. While it might look like we'll be using four TL082 circuits we're really only using two of them!
Here's a simple pinout that is for a different op-amp, but which has the same pinout as a TLN082, but it's drawn better. It's much easier to see how each little TL082 microchip is actually a double op-amp. One amp is "A" triangle and the other is "B" triangle. Look at this and the build schematic will make sense:
You can see that there is an "A" op-amp, and a "B" op-amp. A = pins 1, 2 and 3. B = pins 5, 6 and 7. Pins 4 & 8 power the entire TL082 (both A and B together). Inverting inputs are negative (-) inputs. Non-inverting inputs are positive (+) inputs. So, in the schematics for Chua circuits (done without an inductor, using a gyrator instead) you will see four triangles. They represent the A & B portions of only two TL082 op-amp circuits. You will see two triangles near each other, and two other triangles paired up on the other side of the schematic. Each pair of triangles near each other represents a single TL082! You must treat each triangle as an A or B regarding pins. Decide which triangle in a pair is the "A triangle" and which is the "B triangle". Anything that goes to the A triangle will only use pins 1, 2 and 3. Anything that goes to the B triangle will only use pins 5, 6, and 7. Pins 4 and 8 get the input from your power supply/batteries. It doesn't really matter which triangle those go to, but for simplicity we'll put the 4/8 power to the "A" triangles. So, on the left side of the circuit where we are not using an inductor, but building a gyrator instead we have two triangles. Left Side of Schematic-Gyrator Inductor Simulator Triangle A is on the right: Pin 1 = OUT A Pin 2 = Inverting Input A (negative -) Pin 3 = Noninverting Input A (positive +) Pin 4 = Negative Power Supply input Pin 8 = Positive Power Supply input Triangle B is on the left: Pin 7 = OUT B Pin 6 = Inverting Input B (negative -) Pin 5 = Noninverting Input B (positive +) There, now you have all 8 pins on one of the TL082 op-amps wired up! Right Side of Schematic-Chua Diode Triangle A is on the right: Pin 1 = OUT A Pin 2 = Inverting Input A (negative -) Pin 3 = Noninverting Input A (positive +) Pin 4 = Negative Power Supply input Pin 8 = Positive Power Supply input Triangle B is on the left: Pin 7 = OUT B Pin 6 = Inverting Input B (negative -) Pin 5 = Noninverting Input B (positive +) There, now you have all 8 pins on your second TL082 op-amps wired up! BREADBOARD WIRING Wire Jumpers:
c18-c24
e18-f19
g19-g25
e21-f21
he21-h24
d23-d29
e29-f29
i26-i32
j28-j29
c25-c31
h32-h39
h42-h49
g48-g49
i48-i54
e49-f49
h52-h56
c48-c52
d49-d53
b51-b55
a55-a56
f56-f57
d3-g3
j50 to right power right outside
left power rail inner to b3
left power rail outer to a54
left power rail outer to a26
j50 to right power rail outer
j10 to right power rail inner
j51 to right power rail inner
left power rail outer to a10
j23 to right power rail inner
left power rail inner to b3
i3 to right power rail outer
left power rail outer to a54
left power rail outer to a26
j50 to right power rail outer
j10 to right power rail inner
j51 to right power rail inner
left power rail outer to a10
j23 to right power rail inner
TL082 Chips
Top of chip (with half circle dimple) pins 1 and 8: e23 and f23
Top of chip (with half circle dimple) pins 1 and 8: e51 and f51
Capacitors (film metal not ceramic)
10nf j42 to right power rail outer
100nf a21-a25
100nf j26 to right power rail outer
LEDs
left power rail inner to to a13
j13 to right power rail outer
Batteries
9v Battery 1: red positive to c3 / black negative to c10
9v Battery 2: red positive to h10 / black negative to h3
Ground wire for oscilloscope probe ground clips
right power rail outer (last bottom, right hole)
Oscilloscope probe to leg of capacitor sticking out of hole j26
Oscilloscope probe to left of capacitor sticking out of hole j42
Potentiometers/Trim Pots
Pot 1: middle pin b31 / either other pin left power rail innter / 3rd pin unused
Pot 2: middle pin f39 / either other pin f42 / 3rd in unused
The left side of the breadboard usually has positive and negative...but in this circuit both columns are negative.
The right side of the breadboard is positve on inner column, negative on the outer column closest to the edge of the board.
10k linear potentiometers are recommended because they're easier to turn and are more precise. I used 10k trim pots with are less precise and have to be turned with a screwdriver--bad choice!
Connect the two halves of the circuit with some wires, knobs, outputs to oscilloscope or a USB PC computer-based oscilloscope (with a huge resistor on the outputs so you don't fry your computer or digital scope) and you're good to go. I have real oscilloscopes that are analog/tube and can handle high voltage inputs. Your digital and computer PC scopes might blow up if you try and put more than 3v into them. Read your specs. This thing basically has two 9vDC input spots that may total 18vDC if you mess things up. As always my nemesis is the humble potentiometer (volume knob). On some projects you need to use all 3 pins, but some only 2...and the circuit schematics almost never tell you which. Is it a voltage divider (might be 3 pins) or is it a current adjuster (2 pins?) or is it a volume knob for audio (3 pins?) or a variable resistor (2 pins!)? ************On the most popular "fritzing" diagram for Chua circuits they show 3 wires going to the potentiometers but in the explanation 8 pages later they state that the third wire isn't wired to anything, it's just there to physically keep the pot from moving on the table as you spin the little knob!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so annoyed I spent so much time trying to figure out why/where that third wire was going to!!!! Use only two wires for your Chua circuit pots/knobs: the middle one and one on either side.
I had similar issues with my scanning electron microscope build: five pots labeled V1-V5 for variable resistor, and one of them showing connection to: ground, -negative voltage (which in a DC circuit is the same as the ground) and then the incoming wiper wire from ??? Ugh! Anyway, here we go: PARTS
Analog oscilloscope with two probes (or three if you use the "z" input on the back too). Or coax cables with fittings at one end (probably RG-58 BNC-connector 50ohm) to plug into analog scope inputs, and cut off the other ends to hook to the Chua Circuit. Or you could get some BNC female sockets and put them in your Chua's Circuit...but short lengths of coax wire with BNC connectors are super cheap on Amazon and eBay, so I buy them and cut them in half quite a bit: each coax cable cut in have gives me: two BNC to bare-wire cables. BNC plugs into oscilloscope or function generator or Geiger counter, etc. and the other end I solder to whatever circuit I'm building. Some of them were 75ohm, and some were even old 1970s cable TV wires that weren't marked. Whatever.
Bits of wire, wire strippers, solder and iron if you're going to not use breadboard.
Two 1M resistors only if hooking up to digital oscilloscope
or computer. Old analog oscilloscope don’t need them.
Just hook old analog oscilloscope probes to Capacitor 1 and
Capacitor 2 (the two near each other) and then ground the probe ground clips to
-9vDC (black) on the side rail of the breadboard.
This will be my first ever breadboard project, so I’ll be
following Valentin Siderskiy’s instructions pretty much step-by step, but adding my own
clarifying notes. Such as: you can leave a wire off of each potentiometer, they
only need two in this circuit! Or the ever popular "I think LEDs are polarized so you have to stick them in the right way or they won't light up."
Also, you could easily (I think) leave off: On/off switch; Two LEDs; Resistors for the LEDs; Two more resistors that just smooth down the 5k pots to 2.5k--but then you'd need to probably buy actual 2.5k pots. Dumbing down 5k or 10k pots to only 2.5k makes it easier to make slight adjustments to the circuit while turning the knobs. Since this is my first breadboard I'm going to leave all that stuff in--when I point-to-point wire it up I'll be able to actually tell how to leave them off without breaking connections. I still think in "point-to-point" and not breadboard or circuit board layouts. Running the circuit I used a couple different oscilloscopes. One had 3 inputs: channel a and b (verticals) and a horizontal channel. I just used a and b and set the dial for A vs B to plot the voltages against eachother to get the single scroll chaotic attractor. This gave the same results as my older oscilloscope with a single vertical and single horizontal input (x vs y). The slightest turn of the potentiometers resulted in HUGE changes to the image on the oscilloscope. This is called bifurcation. One of my potentiometers measured only 1.3k instead of 10k when tested on a multimeter: so I replaced it and immediately got better results. I'll probably invest in two full sized pots with convenient knobs to twist. I had two old mismatched batteries, I'll add new ones. When I unhook the oscillscope ground clips from the ground wire the whole circuit becomes very sensitive to hand movements. Bifurcation was observed: tiny, smooth changes to a paremeter (knob twist) results in huge changes to the output (dot turned into a chaotic attractor). Hysterisis (like my previous post about neon lamp bulbs) was observed: the spot where the chaotic attractor turns on is different from where it turns off--plus there's two knobs that influence eachother. Unplugging the inside leg of the 10nf capacitor gave an extremely small, single trace of the famous double scroll attractor. It was very low resolution: it looked like a number "8" written in Old English font! Here are some attractors that resulted when I changed one, then both of the pots from 10k to 5k:
Here are some sweet toroidal Class 1 Eigenvalue = 10 (sort of) attractors.
Here are some results after putting in two 5k pots, then replacing one of the batteries with a 9vDC power supply...but varying the DC voltages from around 1.3vDC to 10vDC:
Here is the shape you see right before the classic double scroll: I was playing with the voltage (I replaced one of the 9v batteries with a DC bench power supply and going from 1.3vDC to 10vDC. One of the IC chips was getting pretty warm though):
It's a homoclinic bifurcation, the periodic orbit grew units it collided with the saddle point.
Multiscroll attractor:
You can see how this double-double scroll attractor developed from multiple loops:
The Logusz Attractor (double-double or chaotic quad-attractor as I'm thinking of naming it)...although it's actually pretty close to what others have found as a projection of the Vc2 / IL plane or the Vc / IL1 plane. The literature on this and others:
Anshan, H. [1988] "A Study of the Chaotic Phenomena in Chua's Circuit," Proceedings of 1988 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (Cat. No.88CH2458-8). IEEE. vol.1, pp.273-276.
Bartissol, P., Chua, L.O. [1988] "The Double Hook (Nonlinear Chaotic Circuits)," IEEE Transactions on Circuits & Systems, vol.35, no.12, pp.1512-1522.
Anshan in particular backs up what I discovered myself: op-amp voltage adjustments can lead to lots of new patterns and attractors. Of course he found this out in the 1980s--and I'm just playing around in my basement as something to do besides mow my lawn...it's nice to see my "weird" non-perfect, non-double scroll attractors have actual mathematical explanations in eigenvalues (weird math) but also voltages.
Great sources of information that I ripped off:
Professor Leon Chua, the inventor of this chaotic circuit.
"Jim" who made http://www.chaotic-circuits.com/
Valentin Siderskiy, Vikram Kapila and Aatif Mohammed of http://www.chuacircuits.com and published
papers and a great Instructable post. Check out "Chua's Circuit for experimenters using readily available parts from a hobby electronics store".
"Chua’s Circuit for High School Students" by Gandhi, Gauruv.,
Muthuswamy, Bharathwaj2 and Roska, Tamas.
This list of awesomeness; hover your mouse over the titles and you can click and be rewarded with actual PDFs of the articles (and not just crummy citations): http://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~chua/circuitrefs.html
Easy DIY Mini Tesla Coil (Solid State Slayer Exciter Circuit)
Here's a video of it lighting up a light bulb wirelessly in my hand:
The Slayer Exciter
is basically a solid state Tesla coil. It’s a high frequency oscillator (or is it
actually a type of resonant power supply or an RF oscillator) with a 2N2222a
signal switching NPN transistor (or put a PNP in backwards?). You do NOT have to manually tune this circuit to a
specific resonant frequency. It all just takes care of itself, unlike a regular
Tesla Coil. There is a parasitic capacitance to ground as a feedback.
DC to
the big (secondary) coil > DC to the Base of transistor, DC to the
small (primary) coil > to the transistor to ground.
DC goes
from the other end of the secondary coil > to the transistor to shut it off.
It does this
very quickly at high frequency oscillating (alternating)back and forth…and thus DC current is transformed into AC
current.
The Slayer
Exciter Tesla coil will function without a top sphere (or torus disc), but the
frequency will be much higher.A lower frequency
will reduce heat in your transistor-saving it from blowing up. The Slayer
Exciter is sluggish at any rate, which will cause transistors to die as it
slowly oscillates on and off…which is why it should have a large heat sink with
thermal paste.
You can also
double or triple up the transistor: just lay them on top of each other and tie
each of the three legs together, but that seems dumb to me: just use a proper
heat sink or do what I do and just fun it for less than 30 seconds! I got the TO-18 package version of the 2N2222a transistor which is
metal, but round…so the heat sink isn’t as easy to scavenge: it needs to be a
star shaped sink with a hole in the center: that’s where you put the
transistor.
E= EmitterB=
Base C=
Collector
Most people
build these with an LED (wired backwards), or better yet a Schottky diode (also wired backwards?). The LED acts as a safety
device for the transistor, so the transistor doesn’t go too negative voltage. I’m doing
without it for now. I like to build things with the least amount of parts as possible. Also, like a gillion people have built these and I'm just having fun here. If it blows transistors, even with a heat sink then I'll add an LED or Schottky diode. It worked first try without heatsink or LED or Schottky diode or even a top collector disc or ball.
Sort of Unnecessary Math: but it lets me know about how many turns my coil has. I see a lot of these with about 100:1 turns, "about" 3 to 5 turns on the primary to "about" 300 turns on the secondary:
Pi = 3.14159
D = 1.5"
Circumference = C = Pi x D
C = 4.7"
Feet of wire x 12 = inches of wire.
197’ x 12 = 2364 inches
2364 / circumference of paper tube = # of turns in the coil.
Inches of wire / Circumference = number of turns.
2364 / 4.7 = 502 turns
The thicker wired "primary" coil of 3 to 5 turns has to be wound around in the opposite direction of the turns of the "secondary" coil!!!!
So I ended up with about 500 turns on primary and 5 turns on the secondary coil.
Building:
-24AWG thin enameled wire (enameled means coated with insulation on the outside); 197 feet. Make sure to scratch away the enameling on the last inch of both ends of this wire!!!!!!!
-Random scrap wire thicker than the 24AWG to make a few (5 turns) of primary coil.
-Paper towel cardboard tube.
-Scotch tape and/or electrical tape to make things easier..
-Stand made out of blue cap from a water bottle to hold tube up (not really necessary).
-2N2222A transitor (metal or plastic, whatever you can order or you can find).
-Heat sink & thermal paste for transistor (I didn't bother since I only run it for about 10 seconds).
-22K resistor.
-Either a 9v battery and connector wires; or about 5v from a DC power supply with wires.
-Knife or sand paper or file to scratch away the last inch of enamel from the thinner wire.
-Metal soup can lid or bottom of soda can cut into dished disc or doorknob or a ball wrapped with aluminum foil for the top collector (I didn't bother with a collector).
-Solder and soldering iron (although you could probably just twist the few components together).
-A small fluorescent light bulb to light up wirelessly in your hand.
You can see the little tab next to the E leg below:
Scrap both ends of thin wire to remove about an inch of enameling. Notice the blue bottled water cap I used as a base:
Red is positive, black is negative from my DC power supply at about 5vDC:
Most "enameled" wire is coated in thin plastic instead of enamal paint or anodizing. That fine. Go with what's cheap:
I use power supplies, not batteries, so I don't need a separate on/off switch. I also left the LED (or Schottky diode) out of this circuit for now. It's just a safety device. If you put an LED in the circuit it will light up when it's "saving" the circuit from going too negative...kinda neat.
So, that's my super simple setup. I gave it around 5vDC and it lighted the light bulb in my hand!
This is a green glowing EM80 tuning / indicator / magic eye tube. I just wanted to see it glow. I was able to make the glowing green fan shape slowly open and close. They make (made) round ones called "cat's eyes" that wink! These were cheaper to make than moving needle meters, but as you can see from the Geiger counters in old monster movies, needle meters grabbed hold way back in the 1940s. Luckily the failed and demented priciples of socialism in the USSR kept factories producing these tubes in Russia until the 1990s...instead of food or clothing or useful items...they just kept making these tubes that the entire world (including Russia) atopped using in the 1920s! For under $20 including shipping on eBay and Amazon you can still get brand new in box magic eye tubes.
See the bottom of the page for a video of my capacitance tester that has one.
AC/Furnace and power supply were making a lot of noise in the video. I was also nervous about holding a camera and live wires--so it's loud, weird and shaky.
Here is the stupid simple way I got it to light up, and then open and close:
+250vDC to pin 9
+250vDC to 470k-660k resistor to pin 7
-250vDC to pin 2
5vDC wallwart either output to pin 4
5vDC wallwart either output to pin 5
Touched pin 1 to pin 7 momentarily to work the eye.
When I touched pin 1 to pin 7 the eye closes, but 250vDC power supply sags. I'm only doing it for a few seconds at a time. The grid voltage (g1) on pin 1 is supposed to act to choke off the power to the tube's triode to open/close the eye. It's supposed to be like -1v to -14v, but by connecting the pins I'm hitting it with almost the full -200v I think.
It worked better with a resisitor higher than 220k. Added second 220k to give 440k and it worked but still got too dim when working the eye. A third resistor made it 660k and that seemed better. That's what I uses in the video. I built a decade resistance box which I'll plug in, and then turn dials to easily set different amounts of resistance and see what works better.
My big DC electrophoresis supply was set at only 200vDC in the video: still utterly deadly!
Anyway, the drop in voltage in the power supply is either: supposed to happen (triode shutting down due to control voltage); or it's not a great idea to basically short out your power supply. Most power supplies might pop a fuse/capacitor/blow up, but I was using an electrophoresis supply which is meant to have wires dangling in water/gel for DNA testing...so it might be a little more forgiving.
Here's the schematic:
Here is the replacement of the resistors with my decade resistance box:
I discovered something nobody else online has mentioned: if you use a resistor (or dial up resistance on a box) at 10k you will see a faint ghost image of the open/closed positions on the eye. If you turn the 10, 000 dial right or left you will see these lines move. When you touch pin 1 to pin 7 the lines will be where the eye opens to! Its like a preview! I call these "Logusz Lines".
Here's a photo of my Heathkit DR-1 decade resistance box I bought for a dollar at a resale shop. Heath Inc. used to be nearby in Benton Harbor Michigan.
Extra notes:
All of my posts are just lab notes online. Most are deadly projects! These are not instructions!
Crazy deadly mess of wires. On the left are two of the eventual three resistors in a row. The red wire is +250vDC which splits off: one way goes directly to pin 9. The other goes to 660k resistors which goes to pin 7.
So, what if I put a potentiometer between pin 1 and 7? With it closed it would have to dissipate a lot of power (heat) and possibly melt. I'm not sure if I'd have to ground it (using 3 wires) or not (using 2 wires). Which way would kill me or the circuit?
What if I put a decade resistance box in place of the resistors at pin 7 and dialed it up and down? Power (heat) dissipation wouldn't be a concern, since it wouldn't be connected--only when I touched a wire from pin 1 to 7. This is a great way to dial up a different resistor value without having to solder in/out a bunch of resistors. I had different results with the 3 different values I tried (220k, 440k and 660k). Different amount of eye open/close but also dimming of the entire green output.
Here's the original report: just wires and no resistor so it would glow green:
Here is the pinout for the EM80 tube:
Nothing will happen without a power supply going to the heater pins.
You must add around +200vDC to pins 7 and 9 and -200vDC to pin 2 to get green glow.
To begin:
I needed a 6.3v (AC or DC) supply for heater pins 4 and 5.
I found a wall wart phone charger type thing and cut the end off and attached the bare wires to yellow alligator clip wires. On the wall plug part it had a sticker that said the output was 5 volts DC. Close enough!
I plugged it into the wall and the heater filament inside the vacuum tube gave a tiny orange glow. Success!
Next I needed 250v DC power. This had to be DC.
I was usiing the nifty disposable camera power supply I made for my neon bulb post. But then my 250v DC laboratory electrophoresis power supply ($65) arrived from eBay. So I used that.
As noted in my neon lamp bulb post high DC voltage is very hard to come by: either a camera flash diy conversion, a lucky find on ebay, or splicing wires into a guitar amp or old time tube radio. Lighting up to see the green glow is fine with a camera flash conversion, but I think shorting out to open/close the eye would kill it.
I took a white wire and ran it from the POSITIVE 250v DC output to pins 7 and 9.
Then I ran a green wire from the NEGATIVE -250v DC output to pin 2.
Boom: crazy green glow! So happy.
In the datasheets and magic eye tube tester circuit diagrams the ground symbol actually means the negative DC wire from the DC power supply. A DC power supply only had two output wires: positive and negative. By an annoying convention ground can mean the negative wire of the power supply or battery you're using.
The spec sheets comes right out and says AC or DC is fine for the heater pins, but they don't make clear that the 250v supply needs to be DC.
To get the green "eye" to open and close you can sometimes short certain pins together. To slowly open and close the eye the proper way is to input NEGATIVE -1v to NEGATIVE -14v. I do not yet know if that is AC or DC or if it's relative to the 250v DC? Like: is it -1 volt or 250-1= 249v?
Also pin 1 is the control grid pin. How do you add voltage to a single pin? Some specs seem to show positive and negative wires going towards that single pin. If it's wired in how do you raise and lower the voltage to open and close the eye? Add a potentiometer?
Supposedly, if you ground the control grid the eye will open. Give it negative volts it will close. This is "biasing" the tube.
Without any resistors Connecting pin 9 to pin 1 turns off the green. That makes sense because pin 9 has the full +250vDC and pin 1 (control grid) wants negative DC. It seemed like a bad idea to continue testing this. I won't connect pin 9 to anything anymore. I'll just unplug everything if I want darkness.
Here's more "official" ways to open/close the eye, but I haven't tried them yet, mainly because I don't have an old timey radio with an AVC (auto volume control) to feed into pin 1.
Here is my Sprague capacitance tester that has a round "cat's eye" magic eye tube:
