[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Jump starting gasoline cars is usually needed because of dead battery. It requires good condition of other components. It also requires high power. Normally, the engine is started using 12V car battery, and can draw current to hundreds of Amperes typically 400A, hence 4.8 kW is required. When the power is too low, it would be cooled down by the fuel and fail to ignite.

When I couldn't afford a new starter battery, I used to start my old Skoda MB with a 12V dry battery temporarily attached to the ignition system. The starter battery only had to crank the motor over one or two revolutions before it picked up and the dynamo (pre-alternator days!) put some life back into it. Adding a diode in the "proper" supply line made it all very easy! 

It seems like a capacitor can help, like in a camera flash.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Incidentally the idea of encapsulating the HV generator in paraffin wax (candle wax) is a good one - makes life a lot safer and provides mechanical protection for the coil too. I built a 100 kV 10 mA unit about 50 years ago with a voltage multiplier inside a liter of paraffin wax, driven by a 20 kHz oscillator. Great fun!

Did you consider heat dissipation?

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Just found another great experiment using high voltage generator.

Supercharging plastic bottle to Breakdown

In this experiment, we use a high voltage multiplier to supercharge a thick plastic bottle to the point where the charge can no longer be contained. The results are spectacular. The plastic of the bottle holds an incredible amount of charge towards the end of the experiment.

Here are my questions to the author.
After the flash over, is the bottle positively charged, or negatively charged instead? How would you determine it?

[Bored chemist]

Quite possibly both.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electret

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Here's the answer by the author of the video above.

The outside of the bottle is negative. The inside of the bottle is positive. The net overall charge of the bottle with respect to earth ground is zero. The polarity could be determined by how it lights up a neon bulb. The negative terminal in a neon bulb containing two terminals would light up brighter than the positive terminal.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Just found a great video showing a phenomenon I've tried to show before.

Point discharge experiment

The experiment shows that positive electricity prefers the pointed electrode; negative electricity prefers the disk-shaped electrode. In the early days of X-ray technology, this effect was used to eliminate the closing current from a spark inductor and to supply only the opening current to the X-ray tube.

I've made an attempt to show the difference in behavior between positively charged and negatively charged electrodes in atmospheric spark gaps. Unlike this video, I only used one pair of electrodes. I tried to adjust the gap between the pointy and blunt electrodes to show electric spark in one direction only, but didn't work.
When the gap was too small, the spark occurred in both direction. When the gap was too big, the spark didn't occur in both direction.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I have a follow up experiment idea. Repeat the experiment with double spark gaps like that, but the gaps are adjustable independently. Find out how much difference is needed to make both gaps produce electric spark.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Here's another way to demonstrate a use of high voltage generator.

Asymmetric thrust capacitor can be used as a speaker.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

This video may give some inspiration for the next experiments using high voltage generators.

Arcs, Sparks and Jacob's Ladders

For Halloween, here is a quick look and  electrical arcs and discharges, much like you often see in the old Frankenstein movies and the wonderful TV shows from the 60s like The Munsters and The Addams Family.  Also included are many of the things we use sparks for in our everyday lives including spark plugs, lighting gas stoves, flash tubes, fluorescent lights, neon bulbs, and arc welding.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

This video is also interesting. I think I'll try to replicate it using my high voltage generator.

Basics of electrostatics - Episode 12: Influence

Influence is a consequence of the force effect between electrical charges. We explain and show what happens.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

The channel also have many other interesting videos with electrostatics phenomena. But this one especially made me curious.

Basics of electrostatics - Episode 3: Why does a tip discharge differently than a ball?

We show you what effect a tip and a ball have on PVC tubes which are charged with electrostatics.

The electric charge on the PVC pipes must go somewhere, presumably to the needle. Can this transfer of electric charges be stopped by a plastic sheet between them? Can it be stopped by a Faraday cage instead?

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Tesla Coil Plasma Rectification

In this experiment a high frequency high voltage diode is connected to the breakout point of a tesla coil to see if the Tesla coil will produce DC high voltage output instead of alternating current electric field .

I think some interesting effects by rectified tesla coil can also be replicated by my high voltage DC generator.