12/27/2025 8 PM - Research/Initial Thoughts

A plasma flame generator can be made multiple ways, but in this case I'll be making it solid-state. It is similar to a regular SSTC, but it oscillates at a very high frequency (that can destroy nearby electronics so it is best to be careful) in the MHz. This creates a very hot plasma flame at the electrode.

I'll be running it off of mains power, and using a variac to control voltage. Or, I might build a scariac. Who knows. It really depends on how bold I'm feeling at the moment. The IRFP460 power MOSFET should be good for this application as well and I'll be going with that. I'll also integrate a relay-resistor initial startup circuit because I don't know if I want to buy a variac.

12/27/2025 9:24 PM - Made 12V power supply

Although the switching happens on mains voltage, the logic needs a much lower voltage so I made a 12V power supply for that. 120VAC feeds into a small 1W power transformer which gets filtered, regulated down to 12V with a linear voltage regulator, and then filtered again. This should be good enough for the logic while not using a lot of power.

12/27/2025 9:51 PM - Did base schematic

I finished up the schematic, adding in the potentiometer (for power control), capacitor bank, FET, toroid inductor, etc. Next up, the coil needs to be calculated.

12/27/2025 10 PM - Worked on coil specs

For the PVC pipe, or inner coil, we'll be using a coupler, which is about 2.7" x 2.5".

I'll use 24-26AWG and do around 110-200 turns of it over the coupler. This should be enough and be well within the right range. As for the capacitors, I'll use a few 0.1uF film or ceramic from the pot to ground, and one from the pot to primary at 0.1uF.

The primary will be ~5 turns but can be tuned later and will be tapped. The diameter will be 4.5" wide.

12/28/2025 11:05 AM - Assigned footprints

Assigned the footprints to all of my parts. Was a little tricky since I had to download some, but I got it done. Hopefully this will work well as a PCB, since most people use massive, thick, solder traces on perfboard due to the massive current. However, I think it should be fine if I size my traces accordingly.

12/28/2025 11:27 AM - Finished component placement

Based on the schematic, I ordered the components in a way that should be easily solderable and routable.
I also added mounting holes and made it easy to implement in the CAD.

12/28/2025 4 PM - Routed the PCB

Finished the entire PCBs routing, hopefully with thick enough traces (2.5mm type shi), should be able to take in more current than needed. I also added ground fills as I learned from the devboard tutorial which should do something hopefully. I did route the GND individually as well just in case.

12/28/2025 5 PM - Made CAD

Designed the holder and case of the coil. I think it looks really cool and I would lowk display this on my desk. It has a ringout for the primary as well. The air insulation should be good enough for the 3d printed material to not become a hazard.

First I made the base, a little bigger than I want the coil itself to be

Added in a little divot for the coil to slide into and some cutouts to save filament/look cool

Then I added the secondary coil itself into the holder

And then I added the holder for the primary coil, which will be wrapped around the four little pillars you see.

And finally I polished it up a bit.

12/28/2025 6 PM - Made BOM/found parts

Found the parts! Was surprisingly easy, I did NOT expect to see those rectifiers on aliexpress. For some reason my JLCPCB won't let me order Global standard direct on this order right now?? So I put perfboard as a placeholder because I can always use that if things go awry.

1/5/2026 11:07 PM - Made wiring diagram

Made the wiring diagram on excalidraw, pretty simple.
I don't think there's much more complexity to this project so I'll just submit for tier 4 probably and pay the rest out of pocket.

1/5/2026 11:19 PM - Did some BOM optimizing

Saved a few bucks and placed a few things for out of pocket so this can be approved as a tier 4. Since I don't think there's much more for me to add since I'll be buying a variac seperately, I'm just sacrificing a bit to get it built.