So in this instructable I am going to show you a couple of

experiments you can do with a laptop charger and a few house hold items that will blow your mind. I have included videos,photos and macro photos of all the experiments

The experiments will be as follows

1. Super bright and High power arcs

2. Melting glass

3. Disintegrating solder

4. Making a plasma cutter

These experiments can be very dangerous IF NOT PERFORMED WITH CARE as one would be dealing with high power and a lot of heat any injury is not my responsibility and perform the following at your own risk and always wear protective wear.

You should at least wear some gloves and some protection for your eyes and try and not look at the high power arcs directly.

Materials for each experiment are in the respective experiments.

PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT AND VOTE FOR ME

Step 1: PREPARING THE CHARGER

Before we move on to the experiments we will prepare the

laptop charger. I used a 20 volts charger that can supply a maximum of 4 amps get a charger close to these readings. Moving forward, you may cut the ends of if the charger is useless OR you can get 2 pairs of alligator clips and connect them to them to the positive and negative terminals of the charger. Since I had made a power supply with the charger you will see me using that instead but you don’t need to do that.

After you have to bare wires hanging you may try and connect them briefly but not for a long time as it will blow up the power supply if you keep the wires connected for a longer time. On connecting the wires you should see bright but relatively harmless sparks.

Step 2: EXP 1 - Super Bright and High Power Arcs

The first experiment and the most basic one is making high

power arcs. For this experiment you will need the following

1. The laptop charger you just prepared in the 2nd step(duh)

2. Mechanical pencil leads (preferably 0.5mm)

Now carefully without breaking the pencil leads(however tempting it may be) grip them firmly between the alligator clips on both the positive and negative ends. Now as you connect them at first the leads will become red hot and the outer coating will catch fire, which is normal.next timeyou join the two pieces this wont happen and you will see red hot graphite.

Step 3: EXP 2 -Melting Glass

For the second experiment repeat the procedure for

the first experiment but now touch the red hot graphite to a glass bead or any other piece of glass. But be careful as the lead may get stuck in the molten glass, if so heat it again and try to pull out the hot lead rather than letting it cool.

Step 4: EXP 3- Disintegrating Solder

The 3rd experiment is similar instead of

glass here we have solder(if you have access to some). Now with the pieces of leads still on the alligator clips get the solder between the leads. The solder will melt at first and form a blob then on further heating it you will see a yellow cloudy kind of thing form and the process will continue till the solder gets exhausted.

Step 5: EXP 4- Making a Plasma Cutter

The 4th experiment is kind of

different but works on the same phenomenon(heating effect of electric current explained later). Disconnect one of the leads and instead connect the alligator clip to a piece of aluminium foil. Now if you want precision you can let the second lead to be on and touch it to the foil but if you (like me) want brute heat and sparks disconnect the lead and instead touch the alligator clip directly to the foil.

Step 6: THE SCIENCE

The science behind this it that the lead is

made up of graphite and as graphite is a very bad conductor ie. its resistance is very high. The heat through the leads is given by the formula

Heat=VIR

Where VI is the power and is constant and R is resistance, as lead offers high resistance the heat increases immensely to the extent that it can disintegrate solder and melt glass.

In the plasma cutter also the high amount of current is actually melting the aluminium around it making way to move forward.

Now my question to you guys is what is the yellow stuff the solder disintegrates into? Is it tin and lead or something else? Also why does the process keeps on going (like the thermite process) once initiated? Please comment down below and