IONIZER

I used one of these to make a static grass applicator for model railroads and dioramas. I had previously built a static grass applicator using an electronic flyswatter. That unit worked and I was happy with it but decided to give it a try with this unit. The difference is amazing, especially with longer fibers (6mm-8mm).

From the website www.seawiseion.com these are DC output devices at around 4kVDC. From tearing down the device it uses a SBS (K1199E70) to drive a transformer and diode based voltage doubler. The output has two 2.3 Meg resistors in series. There are two 4K7 resistors on both the white and black leads. The black lead is negative to the HV output

For testing, use an old-style analog microamp meter with a 1Meg resistor in series to measure the short-circuit output current. (The 1M resistor will have little effect on a working device.)

These devices measure 7KV using a standard 1gigohm HV probe with DMM. Also they measure 45uA DC when shorted (DON'T MEASURE uA WITH A STANDARD DMM METER unless you know how to avoid zapping it with HV!) The internal impedance may be around 150 to 200megs, so the unloaded Vout would actually be higher, around -8000Vdc. It also measures -380Vdc when loaded down by a voltmeter with a Zin of 10M (again, you risk destroying your DMM if you don't know the tricks.)

For safety you might wish to wire a couple of 470K resistors in series. This won't affect the HV output, but it removes possible hazards in malfunctioning units if 120VAC should somehow internally connect to the output wire.

is there any way to rig this device to collect dust, (specifically polyester/epoxy powder coat dust)? Preferably onto a plate or sheet of metal/plastic? How would one wire up the device to do this?

http://www.swansontec.com/sionizer.htm

The how to is actually for using the ionizer as a cheap high voltage power supply, but you get the idea.