How-To: Wine Bottle Cathode Ray Tube

Hot Topics:

By Matt Richardson
Posted 2011/08/21 @ 6:00 am
Category Science

For those of you with an overwhelming desire to build your own subatomic particle accelerator, look no further than this Instructable by Xellers, which shows you how to convert a wine bottle into a cathode ray tube (CRT). Of course, that’s not all you need: other ingredients include a two-stage vacuum pump, a neon sign transformer, a high voltage microwave oven diode, and a few other parts that can be found at your local hardware store. Xellers doesn’t recommend running the tube for more than 40 seconds at a time, so unfortunately you’ll have to use a different method to build that needlessly complex (albeit really cool) reading light you’ve been dreaming up.

More:
The Cathode Ray Tube site, old electronic glassware…

In the Maker Shed

12 Responses to How-To: Wine Bottle Cathode Ray Tube

Timothy Gray on August 21st, 2011 at 3:20 pm said:

Wear a LOT of suntan lotion and UV goggles when doing this. The guy is getting an incredible amount of UV radiation standing there videotaping it.

Reply ↓
- Daniel Kramnik on August 21st, 2011 at 5:20 pm said:
  
  I think you’re confusing a Tesla coil spark gap with a gas discharge tube. Thankfully, the latter doesn’t produce any harmful radiation.
  
  Reply ↓
- Daniel Kramnik on August 21st, 2011 at 5:20 pm said:
  
  I think you’re confusing a Tesla coil spark gap with a gas discharge tube. Thankfully, the latter doesn’t produce any harmful radiation.
  
  Reply ↓
  
  Anonymous on August 21st, 2011 at 6:30 pm said:
  
  Nope. Timothy gray is correct. You can still get UV while the bottle is being evacuated.
  
  Reply ↓
  
  Anonymous on August 21st, 2011 at 10:13 pm said:
  
  A gas discharge tube generates plenty of electromagnetic radiation. He’d be getting X-rays too if his vacuum was any good.
  
  Reply ↓
Dave Brunker on August 21st, 2011 at 6:48 pm said:

I’m no expert in CRTs but I’d want to include a Geiger counter in the list of necessary tools.

Reply ↓
Dave Brunker on August 21st, 2011 at 6:48 pm said:

I’m no expert in CRTs but I’d want to include a Geiger counter in the list of necessary tools.

Reply ↓
Anonymous on August 21st, 2011 at 7:33 pm said:

I think the glow indicates there’s something in there that’s getting ionized. So it’s not a great vacuum, but very cool overall. This could inspire some neat follow-up projects. Good work!

Reply ↓
Tim Dolan on August 21st, 2011 at 10:21 pm said:

Check out Spark bang buzz for another great home brew CRT as well as lots of other educational projects:
http://www.sparkbangbuzz.com/

Reply ↓
- Ben Gregory on August 22nd, 2011 at 12:16 am said:
  
  I got an iPad 2-32GB for $ 23.87 and my girlfriend loves her Panasonic Lumix GF 1 Camera that we got for $ 38.76 there arriving tomorrow by UPS. I will never pay such expensive retail prices in stores again. Especially when I also sold a 40 inch LED TV to my boss for $ 657 which only cost me $ 62.81 to buy. Here is the website we use to get it all from, http://x.co/Z9j7
  
  Reply ↓
- Ben Gregory on August 22nd, 2011 at 12:16 am said:
  
  I got an iPad 2-32GB for $ 23.87 and my girlfriend loves her Panasonic Lumix GF 1 Camera that we got for $ 38.76 there arriving tomorrow by UPS. I will never pay such expensive retail prices in stores again. Especially when I also sold a 40 inch LED TV to my boss for $ 657 which only cost me $ 62.81 to buy. Here is the website we use to get it all from, http://x.co/Z9j7
  
  Reply ↓
FuturePhysicist on November 29th, 2012 at 5:48 am said:

What happens if you keep it running for over 40 seconds?

Reply ↓