A Star Close Up: Building a Dirod electrostatic generator https://www.astarcloseup.com/2011/04/building-dirod-electrostatic-generator.

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A Star Close Up: Building a Dirod electrostatic generator https://www.astarcloseup.com/2011/04/building-dirod-electrostatic-generator.html

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A Star Close Up: Building a Dirod electrostatic generator https://www.astarcloseup.com/2011/04/building-dirod-electrostatic-generator.html

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A Star Close Up: Building a Dirod electrostatic generator https://www.astarcloseup.com/2011/04/building-dirod-electrostatic-generator.html

better but it also reduces corona discharge from the base. This is where the mistakes
began. Being in a hurry, I bought a spray can of polyurethane. It worked great on the
surface of the MDF but the edges soaked it up like a sponge. I never even got to the
bottom before I ran out of paint. If I could do it over again I'd probably use some kind
of sealant first, then put the clear coat on. You shouldn't use metallic paint as that
would defeat the entire purpose of painting the base and black is also a bad choice
because the pigment is carbon. At the high voltages the Dirod generates carbon
conducts really well. It's a shame because the sparks would really stand out against a
dark background.

My second and biggest mistake was not making a key observation at the start: the
corona shield should be exactly 11.5" from the bottom of the base or 10.75" from the
top. This determines the precise height of the components that support it. I didn't
realize this until after I started running into trouble and emailed the manufacturer of the
kit for help. Fortunately the amount of slop in my finished Dirod is only about .125" and
doesn't seem to affect its operation. But I could have done better. When building you
own Dirod use this dimension for fitting the support posts and collector tees. You'll
save yourself some hair-pulling later.

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A Star Close Up: Building a Dirod electrostatic generator https://www.astarcloseup.com/2011/04/building-dirod-electrostatic-generator.html

So far so good...

As per the instructions I removed the lettering from the white CPVC pipe with acetone.
There's lettering on the copper pipe as well but I didn't want to use acetone so I tried
Goo-Gone instead. It took some elbow grease but it worked and the tubing was nice
and clean when I got done.

The CPVC pipe was pre-cut to size so that part was easy. Except that I didn't glue
them the right way (they twisted right back out of the holes) so I had to redo them by
putting some glue around them above the base and shoving them back down. As I
already mentioned, I didn't realize that the two corona shield supports needed to have
their slots exactly 10.75" above the base so they ended up being different by almost
3/32". The slop had set in. At least I managed to glue the main bearing to
the shaft without getting glue in it. The first stage of building the collectors also went
without untoward incident.

Then I made yet another mistake. The instructions said something about gluing the
collectors to the corona shield but this didn't really jump out at me. I couldn't tell from
the photos so I assumed I could do it later if necessary and forgot all about it. Of
course it turned out later that I was supposed to glue the collectors to the corona
shield.

I moved on to preparing the disk. First I had to cut 36 strips of pressure-sensitive

aluminum. Having worked in a graphic arts studio before I knew to make the long cut
first and the short cut second. Having the artist's friend, the cork-backed ruler, helped
a great deal.

Herb Leinbach has an interesting page about building a Dirod and came up with this
clever way of cutting the aluminum strips:

I found a fast way to mark and cut the 36 aluminum tape strips used for
the "rods". I had a scrap piece of 1/4 inch thick aluminum plate, with a
straight base about 4 inches long. Setting the base cross-wise on the
aluminum tape, I marked the 1/4 inch width, Then I flipped the plate on its
side, and used the long edge as a guide for cutting the tape at the marks
with a hobby knife.

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Whichever way you do it make sure you have a sharp, brand-new blade in your X-Acto
knife. A dull blade will snag and tear the material. And don't use a plastic ruler unless
you're never going to use it for anything again.

Now it was time to apply the aluminum strips. It's almost impossible to get them
perfectly placed but "close" is good enough. Here's an old artist's trick: peel off a short
section of the backing paper and place that end on the Plexiglas. Line up the other
end by eye and slowly pull the backing out from under the strip, smoothing the strip
down along its length as you go. This works much better than peeling all the backing
off and then trying get the strip into place. Note that the aluminum has creases in it
that won't smooth out and you can't get them absolutely perfectly aligned so don't
sweat over that.

Gluing the beads on is the real hair puller. I had to do this outside because of the
amount of Goop used. It would have stunk up the entire house up if I hadn't. It's also a
very messy job. I tried to using a pair of pliers but quickly gave up on that approach.
This is a job that has to be done by hand. I ended up getting a lot of glue on my fingers
and the wind almost blew the beads away a couple of times but I got it done. Be sure
to press down firmly on each bead after placing to make sure it was seated properly
and not just hanging on by one tiny spot of half-set glue.

Don't look too closely

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Next, assuming that I had the corona shield all taken care of, I installed the foil on the
bottom of the base and glued the neutrals into place. It was when I tried to put the
corona rings on the short pieces of CPVC that I ran into trouble again. It was very
difficult to get them started on the pipe and moved down far enough for the tees to fit.
It took some very tense moments to get them into place. You might want to partially
ream out one end of both rings to make it easier to get started.

Then I added the tees, the 1" pieces of tubing, put the collectors into place and quickly
realized something was out of whack:

Click to enlarge this mistake

Why is this thing so crooked? What's supposed to hold the corona shield up in the
right corner? I was really baffled. You can see that I put a rubber band on the copper
pipe to level out the corona shield and that the bottom of the tee is well above that
height. I still hadn't realized that the collector was supposed to be glued flat onto the
corona shield. It took a couple of emails back and forth with Kevin to figure all this out
and I was rather depressed for a couple of days until the solution became clear.

Let me stop here and repeat myself. Make sure the corona shield is supported at a
height of 10.75" above the surface of the base at all four corners. The 1" pieces of pipe
between the two tees (as per the instructions) were actually about .125" too long for to
get the collector tees to drop down to the correct height. Of course your Dirod may
turn out slightly differently. The only way to be sure is to carefully measure everything
as you're building it. I double, triple, and quadruple-measured everything before I
made each cut and I still got it wrong.

Now that I finally had a clear vision of how it all fit together it was a simple matter of
cutting shorter pieces of tubing and gluing things together properly:

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Doing it right the second time

Once the glue had set I ran into another problem: the hole in the disk was too small for
the shaft. I tried rounding the shaft off but it still wouldn't go through the hole. I
measured the hole and shaft with calipers and found that the hole was 1/64" smaller. I
ended up reaming out the hole by hand with a .25" drill bit. Fortunately this wasn't too
loose.

I spent quite a bit of time playing around with the height of the disk and trying to level it
out. In end I just went ahead and glued the wooden wheel to the disk but not to the
shaft. Once the glue had set the disk ran almost perfectly level and I was able to move
it up and down to find the correct height for it. I put glue on the shaft, slid the disk back
to the correct height and held it in place with a clothespin while the glue set.

The last step was to add the brushes. I taped them on with Scotch Magic Tape, taking
care to fold over one end of the strip so I could easily remove and reposition the tape
until I had the brush height just right.

I gave the disk a spin and it started crackling immediately. And I discovered one final
problem: The groove in the crankwheel doesn't line up with the "pulley" on the shaft.
This made it hard to keep the belt from running out of the groove. It was also hard to
turn the crank because it tilted slightly on the bolt and there was a great deal of
friction.

Fortunately the solution to both these problems was ridiculously simple—I added three
more washers under the crank. Now the belt is perfectly aligned and almost all the
friction has disappeared. I can spin the disk much faster than is actually needed.

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Smooth...

And that's all there is to it (he said knowingly).

For some further musings on building a Dirod #8 and electrostatic motors see Harold
Leinbach's page. I'll be exploring that and other things in a later post.

Posted by The Mac Doktor at 6:24 PM

6 comments:
Otto Belden said...
Very neat, I had never heard of a Dirod before. Youve got me interested
now I'll have to look around for some info. Thanks!
- Otto
June 2, 2011 at 11:40 PM

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A Star Close Up: Building a Dirod electrostatic generator https://www.astarcloseup.com/2011/04/building-dirod-electrostatic-generator.html

steve said...
Oh I love the sound of the book fair! Have a wonderful time and a really
good rest. Your reading sounds perfect.
February 14, 2014 at 4:35 AM

Rod madness said...

Well done mate. How long is the spark you achieved with this build?
July 1, 2014 at 7:44 AM

The St. Dr. Oscar said...

With the rod gap 1.5". With a ball gap .75" (much louder snap) I'd put the
links to the posts (which have pictures) here but they don't display properly
in the comments. Search the site for "Dirod".

Thanks for the positive feedback.

July 1, 2014 at 2:19 PM

Tony Webb said...

I'm a bit puzzled by the need to use non- conducting paint for the base. It is
well away from the generating area, and is made of MDF, a conductor. Any
spark capable of jumping to it should penetrate a paint film easily.
furthermore, while operating, your hand (a good conductor)is closer to the
high- voltage areas than the base.
May 27, 2018 at 12:10 PM

The Mac Doktor said...

Tony: I'm a bit late answering your question as I never received an email
when you posted it.

There's a conductive strip on the bottom that joins the two vertical pieces of
copper tubing. The instructions advise painting the entire base just to be
safe. I'm not an expert, I just followed the advice to be safe. YMMV.

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