I just finished building a working by-God Van de Graaff generator. It produced sparks I could feel, and in darkness see.

Granted, the range of those sparks was maybe 1/32 of an inch, and I only got a half dozen of them before a flaw in my dielectric belt caused the whole thing to freeze up.

But that’s beside the point. I did it. I solved the major design problems and was able to put together a machine that achieved its purpose. And that’s awesome.

Now I need to come up with a way to keep polyester ribbon from fraying itself to oblivion under stress….

UPDATE:  By changing to a latex rubber belt, I managed to correct the self-destructing belt problem.  Woo!  Unfortunately, the belt now has a strong tendency to crawl to the end of the upper roller, up the little flange on the end, and hang out there.  Surprisingly, it still works, with an arc length of maybe 1/4 inch, but not as well as it could.  I need to put either a hump or a divot in the middle of the roller.  A hump would do better at keeping the belt flat, I think.

UPDATE 2:  The hump on the roller worked.  The power is now mine to command.  Mwa ha ha and so forth.

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