Words of wisdom here ^ ^

There are some transistors that will really deal with some serious abuse, and they have the gain and base ruggedness to handle these out of spec operations. Be sure to put a good heatsink on the transistor to help it get rid of the heat being created by the voltage drops across the junction. You don't even have to mess with solder paste if you don't want to... they make a rubber like pad that you can put under the transistors when clamping to a heatsink that will pass the heat very nicely and no mess. I did this with my little 5 volt one that I blew up. I added a small fan as well. Now I can feed it 18 volts and it looks like something from a sci-fi show LOL You can smell the ozone.

​@@KlodFather Sure there are higher voltage rated transistors, but its never good practice to do this to a circuit designed for a set voltage. Signal processing components are almost ALWAYS rated to less than 12v. Also, gain has nothing to do with ruggedness. The "robustness" of a transistor is inherently subject to the circuit design criteria. In this case, a mosfet would be preferable because of the comparatively low on resistance and thus low junction losses. It also requires much less current to drive a mosfet at these frequencies and powers.

@@treasuretotrash2067 - I have done this before... It went over your head. What you are talking about is a complete redesign of the circuit using FETs. I am telling you a quicky quack way to solve a big issue, and you forget that guys like me are the designers of these simple circuits. If you replace the transistors with higher dissipation units and make sure you keep the beta(gain value correct) the circuit will work well within reason. You cannot dump an FET into a circuit that is made for a bipolar transistor. You are too smart by half and should consider your contribution before dumping it here and leading someone into big trouble. Now... if you want to redesign the oscillator that is driving the flyback coil with FETs then by all means do so and post your success. Think your idea through first, because what you are talking about makes no sense and will fail hard. I am simply talking about replacing the transistors and the caps if necessary to accommodate the higher supply voltage. And under 30 volts, this is not a problem. This is the difference between a repair guy and a builder or engineer. Back to the school for you.

@@treasuretotrash2067 - Your main post is spot on... But the second one in reply to me shows the cracks in the logic.

That's what I was thinking lol

The higher rated power-supplies will be just fine, it just means that they have more capacity to work with. = ) What you really need to watch, (what you *only* need to watch, is your voltage, because that is what will actually determine your final power level.

"The little 12 volt mosfet transistor on its circuit board gets destroyed. Later I ended up replacing it with a stronger one and added a larger heatsink. Works like a dream now!" the description.

@@TheRealYashNotFake thanks :|

@@linuslexus3117 thats what she Said except It was 4 🤭

lol I didn't think that one through

No offence to him, but he may not even be able to hear it while editing.

I have bench/lab power supplies that will. You can set them to keep it under whatever current you set it at... but if there is a short or out of spec load, the voltage will drop because ohms law cannot be broken. But be sure that those supplies and circuits exist that are called constant current supplies just as many power supplies out there are made to be constant voltage.

Right. Isn't it basically the amperage is drawn out based on the resistance in the circuit. So you can overload the supply into the resistors with higher voltage and with more amperage available but that only leads to damaging the resistors inside. Realistically if it's AC power you might be better off doubling cycles in Hz evenly. And reducing the resistance inside the unit.

@@infn8loopmusic - What those plasma balls are doing with the AC input is to rectify it and filter it with a cap for smooth DC. Then they will have transistors oscillating into a coil of some sort with a very high tension secondary similar to a flyback in a TV. TV high voltage is 15 kc or so and gets really efficient transfer with little iron. Many ultrasonic cleaners do the same thing between 35 and 60 kcs. Line power is 60hz and would require HUGE iron to step it up to plasma ball voltages. That is why you can power these with DC because the DC adapters just go straight through the diode bridge past the filter cap and the globe fires right up. The input impedance would be increased if you were feeding a step up transformer directly but a large iron transformer made for 60hz will not like that very much and will fight the high frequency AC. That stuff always works on inverses. There are some good videos here on YT about that kind of circuit analysis and some good books illustrating those concept and their math.

​@@KlodFather I'm sorry, but I think you need to read a bit more on how voltage and current works. You can't limit the current and still have the same voltage. If you hit the current limiter the voltage will always drop so that the current doesn't exceed the chosen value. It's impossible for the same load to draw a different amount of current at the same voltage.

​@@EmilSaloheimo - You should go back and read what I wrote carefully. I said exactly what you are saying in my previous post "but if there is a short or out of spec load, the voltage will drop because ohms law cannot be broken." You should read more carefuly before making a false assertion and being too smart by half.

Nope. The transistor just overheated, that's all.

I had a similar situation, I lost the USB charger for mine and found a TV plug which fit the plasma ball. Within 10 seconds of turning it on and touching it, smoke started to come out of where it was plugged in, if i left it any longer it probably would have set on fire 😅

oh hell no