DON'T BUILD A DIY "Plasma" Cannon (until reading this)
I recently saw a video of a DIY "Plasma Cannon" and thought, "There is no way this is actually real." Naturally, I decided to test it for myself.
I started with a small-scale prototype using two 16.9-ounce water bottles. To my surprise, it actually worked. I decided to scale up the experiment using 1-gallon water jugs. My first attempt backfired (literally) and blew apart—which was a pretty dangerous lesson in combustion dynamics.
Taking the time to fix the design flaws, I rebuilt the rig with my two remaining 1-gallon jugs. To my relief, the new and improved setup worked flawlessly, producing an incredible blue plasma wave that looked amazing in slow motion.
The $1.25 Upgrade
These 1-gallon bottles were about $1.25 each, whereas the heavy-duty 5-gallon jugs I saw in other videos were $30 each. For 15x the price, the end result is definitely not 15x cooler. Cheap plastic worked perfectly fine.
Jury-Rigged Cinematography
To film this, I used a highly sophisticated camera setup: a dining room chair and some electrical tape. Taping my phone to the chair made it incredibly stable while keeping the whole rig easy to operate in the dark.
To fine-tune the recording angle and get the perfect shot, I just propped the front of the chair up using a couple of bricks I found lying around outside my house.
Purchased Parts
- Clear Vinyl Tubing $7.00
- 4x 1-Gallon Water Jugs $5.00
- Total Build Cost $12.00
Lying Around The House
- Propane Torch $0.00
- Drill + Spade Drill Bits $0.00
- Electrical Tape $0.00
- Camera (iPhone) $0.00
- Camera Stand (Chair + Bricks) $0.00
- Editing Software (Shotcut) $0.00