High Voltage Probe

The Fusor operates at quite a high voltage (tens of thousands of volts!) so I need a way to safely take measurements of the voltage to ensure that things are working properly. Enter the High Voltage Probe! It’s essentially an enormous resistor, you make it by stringing together a whole bunch of smaller resistors. First up I designed a PCB.

Then I soldered in a whole bunch of resistors. They’re VR37 and so rated for a nice high voltage value. The PCB and the associated KiCad files are also available on my Github.

With the PCB complete, I wanted to ensure there was some sort of high voltage insulation, enter wax! I’d seen my mum use it for canning and I figured it wouldn’t be too hard to use. You can order a bunch of Amazon for not too much money. It arrived, I took a bit of plastic piping and cut it to length, popped in the PCB after soldering a nail to the board via a bit of wire, and poured a bunch of wax into the tube! All done!