oh my goodness hey what’s up guys
welcome back to the lab today we’re
filming this video in the dark because
we’re doing something a little bit
different I had a comment pop-up from
Jacob Militello who said try to get a
plasma globe and break the glass and
turn it on and see what happens
so Jacob I went on Amazon I picked this
thing up this is a $500 plasma globe
it’s about the biggest one I could find
and just arrived the other day so I got
my trusty sledgehammer we got this globe
powered up let’s go ahead and smash the
glass and see if we can answer your
question now before we actually smash
this thing open I thought it’d be fun to
play with it and kind of explore the
properties of a plasma globe what is it
how does it work what’s it made of
now I have to admit when this thing
first arrived I picked it up and kind of
thought it was fake because it’s
extremely extremely light I would have
thought that this dome was made of glass
I’m feeling it it almost feels like it’s
made of plastic although when I look at
it I can actually see ridge lines in
there so the question I want to answer
first
is this actually glass or is it plastic
because we try smashing it with our
hammer I actually want it to crack and I
want it to just you know do a little
seam line and destroy the whole thing so
I’m guessing this is glass but I’m not
100% sure now if we take a look at the
back of the power adapter here you can
see how much power is going in and how
much is being converted it’s pulling
house power and converting it to 12
volts at about 3 amps if you look inside
the globe you’ll see this little Center
Tower and that’s essentially a Tesla
coil and it steps that 12 volts up to
somewhere in the thousands of volts now
it could be two thousand volts or it
could be twenty thousand volts at this
point I don’t really have any way of
knowing because there’s no markings
anywhere on the unit itself now if you
remember my thank-you video where we
passed seven million subscribers I went
to the Science Center and found a giant
plasma globe like this and here’s a
piece of aluminum foil to actually draw
the arc outside of the globe we’re going
to see if we can do that with this one
as well all we have to do is take a
piece of aluminum foil and put it down
on top of the glass and this builds up a
capacitive charge and if we take
something like a piece of metal and
touch it with our fingers we can
actually get close to the metal and get
those sparks to jump out you can see the
spark is quite a bit smaller than the
one that we had at the Science Center
that’s because the power pumping through
this thing is substantially less and
even though we can use it to burn holes
in a piece of paper it’s not quite
enough to actually light the paper off
now the next question I have in my mind
is this dome made of plastic or is it
actually glad my question comes because
it’s extremely lightweight which makes
it hard to
this is glass but we should be able to
tell pretty easily by taking the tip of
a screwdriver and giving it a gentle tap
okay so it’s got a very sharp King and
you can actually hear it resonate on the
inside if you look really closely you
can see the ridges and the swirls where
it looks like the glasses blown expanded
so I am confident this is glass which
means it should shatter under the weight
of our hammer all right so good news
guys it looks like our globe is glass
we’ve got thousands of volts of
electricity pumping here this question
is what happens now if we take our
hammer and we smash the glass while this
thing is running is the electricity
going to jump out is it going to kill me
is there going to be any safety concern
at all we don’t know that’s what we’re
here to find out let’s get to it I’m
putting my glasses on for safety but it
really would be better to have some kind
of a full face shield because we don’t
exactly know what’s inside of this globe
is it under vacuum pressure or is it
filled with some kind of inert gas like
argon or nitrogen we’re not exactly sure
but we have seen from previous
experience with vacuum chambers that
when it smashes it implodes and
basically falls straight down so that is
a risk I’m willing to take for you
however I’m going to put on some heavier
duty gloves first the other thing that I
noticed is if I hold my hand on the
globe here and I accidentally touch any
exposed skin to the aluminum trim around
my workbench it gives me a little bite I
can actually feel the electricity
jumping through my body cool makes you
smell like burning hair or burning flesh
I wonder if I should like tilt this and
actually hold it in my hand as I smash
it it’s super cool you can see the way
my fingers glow in the back of the globe
yeah I think I’m going to do it I’m
actually just going to hold this while I
smash it because that seems like the
unsafe thing to do isn’t it okay this
where I start getting a little bit
nervous guys so we’re going to do it
here we going three two one
oh my goodness
holy heck I could not have predicted
that that did not implode that exploded
that like shot glass out everywhere all
over my workbench it didn’t cut me
though and look here the electricity
doesn’t appear to actually be shooting
anymore I’m not sure if it turned off
that was amazing we got to look at the
replay on that look at all this glass
look at all the shards oh my goodness
that was incredible
okay so watching this on a slow-mo
replay here’s the windup hammers coming
down
makes contact and interesting like the
top of the dome kind of flew upwards and
then everything underneath is kind of
like imploded and fell down so that was
really interesting guys so I can’t tell
if it exploded or imploded it was kind
of like sheared in half the top popped
off and everything else just fell down
all I can say is there’s a tremendous
amount of force and that was a lot
louder than I was expecting
all I can say is I feel really lucky I
have no cuts no damage I’m no worse for
wear look at this this is the glass and
what what’s really interesting about
this is if you look at this side of the
glass it’s extremely thin but then you
look at this side and it’s substantially
thicker so like obviously the glass
changes thicknesses as well that’s
pretty bizarre I wouldn’t have expected
that and because that popped off so
dramatically I’m wondering if whatever
gas was inside there was actually
pressurized like this might have
actually been under pressure if it were
a vacuum it would have sucked in but I’m
pretty sure that was a pop that was like
an explosion outward so maybe
pressurized argon or pressurized
nitrogen is in there now this is crazy
guys the dome is gone you don’t see any
more arcs flailing around I don’t feel
any charge in the atmosphere I don’t see
any electricity but if I touch it you
can actually hear it buzzing you can
hear it hissing and if I take the tip of
a screwdriver and touch it you can see a
little arc start flying there not nearly
as dramatic as the long octopus arms
that were inside the dome because I
think there’s only a couple thousand
volts of electricity there because we’re
in the standard atmosphere now with
nitrogen oxygen it just doesn’t have the
same effect so yeah basically if you pay
$500 for a plasma globe of your own
don’t smash it open it looks a lot
cooler if you just leave it on your
table and let it roll oh and if you look
really closely you can actually see a
purple glow around my fingers you see
that it gets really hot so it’s that
heats up really fast you know the crazy
thing about this is you can see the arcs
line near the tip of the screwdriver and
my finger is right beside it making
contact but I feel absolutely nothing
oh what the heck just happened there
Oh are we melting the glass something
weird is happening it can actually draw
this art out substantially and wonder
what change to make that happen
can we actually crack the glass do we
burn a hole through it maybe interesting
that it’s travelling upwards probably
cuz the key to the flame is rising well
there you have it guys we made an epic
mess glass everywhere I’m going to have
to get busy cleaning this up but we did
this for you Jacob to help answer that
burning question you had and so what
happens if you smash the glass on a
plasma globe and turn it on you can go
check your youtube inbox Jacob I’m
sending a twenty five bucks
hey thanks for joining us for this
experiment we’ll be looking for you next
one talk to you then clean-up on aisle
three I’m saying that a lot to use this
oh dang it hey guys I want to jump back
in for just a second to invite you to
come follow me on Instagram I’ve got a
very active page where I post daily
pictures and stories of behind the
scenes in every day’s an adventure just
take five seconds right now to click the
link in the description to come follow
me on instagram at the king of random
I’ll see you there
[Music]
welcome back to the lab today we’re
filming this video in the dark because
we’re doing something a little bit
different I had a comment pop-up from
Jacob Militello who said try to get a
plasma globe and break the glass and
turn it on and see what happens
so Jacob I went on Amazon I picked this
thing up this is a $500 plasma globe
it’s about the biggest one I could find
and just arrived the other day so I got
my trusty sledgehammer we got this globe
powered up let’s go ahead and smash the
glass and see if we can answer your
question now before we actually smash
this thing open I thought it’d be fun to
play with it and kind of explore the
properties of a plasma globe what is it
how does it work what’s it made of
now I have to admit when this thing
first arrived I picked it up and kind of
thought it was fake because it’s
extremely extremely light I would have
thought that this dome was made of glass
I’m feeling it it almost feels like it’s
made of plastic although when I look at
it I can actually see ridge lines in
there so the question I want to answer
first
is this actually glass or is it plastic
because we try smashing it with our
hammer I actually want it to crack and I
want it to just you know do a little
seam line and destroy the whole thing so
I’m guessing this is glass but I’m not
100% sure now if we take a look at the
back of the power adapter here you can
see how much power is going in and how
much is being converted it’s pulling
house power and converting it to 12
volts at about 3 amps if you look inside
the globe you’ll see this little Center
Tower and that’s essentially a Tesla
coil and it steps that 12 volts up to
somewhere in the thousands of volts now
it could be two thousand volts or it
could be twenty thousand volts at this
point I don’t really have any way of
knowing because there’s no markings
anywhere on the unit itself now if you
remember my thank-you video where we
passed seven million subscribers I went
to the Science Center and found a giant
plasma globe like this and here’s a
piece of aluminum foil to actually draw
the arc outside of the globe we’re going
to see if we can do that with this one
as well all we have to do is take a
piece of aluminum foil and put it down
on top of the glass and this builds up a
capacitive charge and if we take
something like a piece of metal and
touch it with our fingers we can
actually get close to the metal and get
those sparks to jump out you can see the
spark is quite a bit smaller than the
one that we had at the Science Center
that’s because the power pumping through
this thing is substantially less and
even though we can use it to burn holes
in a piece of paper it’s not quite
enough to actually light the paper off
now the next question I have in my mind
is this dome made of plastic or is it
actually glad my question comes because
it’s extremely lightweight which makes
it hard to
this is glass but we should be able to
tell pretty easily by taking the tip of
a screwdriver and giving it a gentle tap
okay so it’s got a very sharp King and
you can actually hear it resonate on the
inside if you look really closely you
can see the ridges and the swirls where
it looks like the glasses blown expanded
so I am confident this is glass which
means it should shatter under the weight
of our hammer all right so good news
guys it looks like our globe is glass
we’ve got thousands of volts of
electricity pumping here this question
is what happens now if we take our
hammer and we smash the glass while this
thing is running is the electricity
going to jump out is it going to kill me
is there going to be any safety concern
at all we don’t know that’s what we’re
here to find out let’s get to it I’m
putting my glasses on for safety but it
really would be better to have some kind
of a full face shield because we don’t
exactly know what’s inside of this globe
is it under vacuum pressure or is it
filled with some kind of inert gas like
argon or nitrogen we’re not exactly sure
but we have seen from previous
experience with vacuum chambers that
when it smashes it implodes and
basically falls straight down so that is
a risk I’m willing to take for you
however I’m going to put on some heavier
duty gloves first the other thing that I
noticed is if I hold my hand on the
globe here and I accidentally touch any
exposed skin to the aluminum trim around
my workbench it gives me a little bite I
can actually feel the electricity
jumping through my body cool makes you
smell like burning hair or burning flesh
I wonder if I should like tilt this and
actually hold it in my hand as I smash
it it’s super cool you can see the way
my fingers glow in the back of the globe
yeah I think I’m going to do it I’m
actually just going to hold this while I
smash it because that seems like the
unsafe thing to do isn’t it okay this
where I start getting a little bit
nervous guys so we’re going to do it
here we going three two one
oh my goodness
holy heck I could not have predicted
that that did not implode that exploded
that like shot glass out everywhere all
over my workbench it didn’t cut me
though and look here the electricity
doesn’t appear to actually be shooting
anymore I’m not sure if it turned off
that was amazing we got to look at the
replay on that look at all this glass
look at all the shards oh my goodness
that was incredible
okay so watching this on a slow-mo
replay here’s the windup hammers coming
down
makes contact and interesting like the
top of the dome kind of flew upwards and
then everything underneath is kind of
like imploded and fell down so that was
really interesting guys so I can’t tell
if it exploded or imploded it was kind
of like sheared in half the top popped
off and everything else just fell down
all I can say is there’s a tremendous
amount of force and that was a lot
louder than I was expecting
all I can say is I feel really lucky I
have no cuts no damage I’m no worse for
wear look at this this is the glass and
what what’s really interesting about
this is if you look at this side of the
glass it’s extremely thin but then you
look at this side and it’s substantially
thicker so like obviously the glass
changes thicknesses as well that’s
pretty bizarre I wouldn’t have expected
that and because that popped off so
dramatically I’m wondering if whatever
gas was inside there was actually
pressurized like this might have
actually been under pressure if it were
a vacuum it would have sucked in but I’m
pretty sure that was a pop that was like
an explosion outward so maybe
pressurized argon or pressurized
nitrogen is in there now this is crazy
guys the dome is gone you don’t see any
more arcs flailing around I don’t feel
any charge in the atmosphere I don’t see
any electricity but if I touch it you
can actually hear it buzzing you can
hear it hissing and if I take the tip of
a screwdriver and touch it you can see a
little arc start flying there not nearly
as dramatic as the long octopus arms
that were inside the dome because I
think there’s only a couple thousand
volts of electricity there because we’re
in the standard atmosphere now with
nitrogen oxygen it just doesn’t have the
same effect so yeah basically if you pay
$500 for a plasma globe of your own
don’t smash it open it looks a lot
cooler if you just leave it on your
table and let it roll oh and if you look
really closely you can actually see a
purple glow around my fingers you see
that it gets really hot so it’s that
heats up really fast you know the crazy
thing about this is you can see the arcs
line near the tip of the screwdriver and
my finger is right beside it making
contact but I feel absolutely nothing
oh what the heck just happened there
Oh are we melting the glass something
weird is happening it can actually draw
this art out substantially and wonder
what change to make that happen
can we actually crack the glass do we
burn a hole through it maybe interesting
that it’s travelling upwards probably
cuz the key to the flame is rising well
there you have it guys we made an epic
mess glass everywhere I’m going to have
to get busy cleaning this up but we did
this for you Jacob to help answer that
burning question you had and so what
happens if you smash the glass on a
plasma globe and turn it on you can go
check your youtube inbox Jacob I’m
sending a twenty five bucks
hey thanks for joining us for this
experiment we’ll be looking for you next
one talk to you then clean-up on aisle
three I’m saying that a lot to use this
oh dang it hey guys I want to jump back
in for just a second to invite you to
come follow me on Instagram I’ve got a
very active page where I post daily
pictures and stories of behind the
scenes in every day’s an adventure just
take five seconds right now to click the
link in the description to come follow
me on instagram at the king of random
I’ll see you there
[Music]
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