danyk's Electromagnetic Shenanigans

August 25, 2010 12:47 AM

(MLYT) Danyk666 and his microwave oven, danyk and his unshielded Source, danyk's little jacob's ladder, danyk heats water, zaps a CD, uses wrong AC power. Also hairspray high-volt abuse, his flyback transformer no workee (wait for it), carbon scoring on your droids? And danyk's small shaded-pole motor ...OF DEATH!!!

Stumbled into these with a jealous twinge: I notice that he's tried a couple things I never dared. They're old postings, yet don't show up in search (Czech keywords.) All his vids have non-English project pages with details & photos. But then while searching deeper: YEESH. Poking at bare unshielded magnetrons on the bathroom floor? Watching him feels like a hatful spiders, big black widows. Flammable hairspray plus Tesla coil. METER LONG AC discharges. UNSHIELDED X-RAY SOURCES WHA?!! And his tiny shaded-pole motor is slightly terrifying. Sir I salute you, and now I've had to go buy Ukranian GU-81Ms on eBay and need to get an expensive 1KW plate transformer hope you're HAPPY.

Now go and peruse his main site (En) for even more stoof, much impressive and not even that dangerous.

posted by billb (35 comments total)

O_o
posted by Dr Dracator at 1:08 AM on August 25, 2010

"Why worry? Each of us is wearing an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back."
posted by hanoixan at 1:12 AM on August 25, 2010 [6 favorites]

These, they are the people who make bomb, yes?

Or the device from Sliders?
posted by disillusioned at 1:16 AM on August 25, 2010

I can't believe he's fucking with an open flame and (what is basically) a tesla coil in a interior bedroom. I just hope this guy doesn't live in an apartment building.

Still pretty cool to the part of me that wears jorts and grunts like Beavis (no hamburger).
posted by codacorolla at 1:27 AM on August 25, 2010

Forget that, he's operating an unshielded X-ray source with enough power to do some serious X-ray videography! I hope he doesn't have neighbors within, say, a quarter mile. You know it's fun when you can actually see point distortions in the CCD image from high-energy X-rays bombarding the sensor.
posted by Punkey at 1:47 AM on August 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

I loved the one where they're cleaning off the pillow? remnants on the shaded pole motor with what I think is lit aerosol can.
posted by zippy at 1:47 AM on August 25, 2010

> live in an apartment building

Someone's garage and back yard appears on his Chicken TV repairmen page
posted by billb at 1:53 AM on August 25, 2010

Excellent. The world needs more mad electrical engineers - why do the mad scientists get all the credit?
posted by Meatbomb at 3:10 AM on August 25, 2010

No discussion of unsafe science experiments can be complete without The Radioactive Boyscout. Also Prevously.
posted by cotterpin at 3:32 AM on August 25, 2010

I can't believe he's the way he's mishandling his stash in the first video.
posted by crunchland at 3:38 AM on August 25, 2010

An impressive collection of ways to die, for sure. I feel pedestrian now.
posted by Iosephus at 3:51 AM on August 25, 2010

Czech, please.
posted by hal9k at 4:22 AM on August 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

The Radioactive Boyscout

Also Sam Barros' PowerLabs. Sam's new 140kV AC transformer is siiiiiiick.

These guys seem kind of dumb. Maybe not quite as dumb as melting glass with hydroflouric acid in your bedroom [mpg], but still pretty dumb.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:34 AM on August 25, 2010

I feel like I'm getting cancer just from watching these videos.
posted by backseatpilot at 5:14 AM on August 25, 2010 [3 favorites]

Danyk will be a great Dad for his deformed children.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 5:46 AM on August 25, 2010

oh geez he let waaaaay too much of the magic smoke out of that flyback.
posted by tylermoody at 5:58 AM on August 25, 2010

>I can't believe he's the way he's mishandling his stash in the first video.


That's a bag of LEDs - it's not that kind of magic smoke.
posted by tylermoody at 6:06 AM on August 25, 2010

HEY GUYS DID YOU NOTICE HOW UNHEALTHY THIS IS!
posted by odinsdream at 6:39 AM on August 25, 2010

I got tense just watching that. That's an impressively crazy hobby he's got there. I particularly liked how, when the flyback transformer started to smoke, at which most people would cut the power, he moves closer.

I went to a safety workshop about microwaves once (in the context of high power satellite uplinks.) They made us calculate how long it would take to boil the vitreous fluid in your eyeball, if you happen to look down a kW transmitter. Not long, if you were wondering.

(About 6.5ml liquid, ~7g. Specific heat capacity is around 4200J/Kg/K, so needs around 4200*64*0.007 = 1900J. If you look down the focus of a 1kW magnetron, you could get that in a few seconds. That's why you don't casually look down the feed horn of uplink satellite dishes.)

Also the lens and cornea don't have any blood vessels, so are bad at dispersing heat.

That said, I'm guessing this is the sort of person who will probably live into his 90s while smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.
posted by Luddite at 6:48 AM on August 25, 2010 [8 favorites]

Watching him feels like a hatful [of] spiders, big black widows.

Radioactive spiders, then? I wonder what will happen if he gets bitten.
posted by The Bellman at 6:57 AM on August 25, 2010

danyk and his little tumor, danyk gives his village cancer, etc
posted by Pastabagel at 6:59 AM on August 25, 2010

...danyk gets a Darwin award...
posted by the painkiller at 7:12 AM on August 25, 2010

I used to wonder what high school physics lab would have been like without teachers or any concept of safety. Now I know.

But seriously, it takes a special kind of person to pick up a smoking flyback transformer and look at it, rather than do the obvious thing like TURN OFF THE ELECTRICITY.
posted by tommasz at 7:35 AM on August 25, 2010

Remember the first time you stood with your head right next to an unshielded X-Ray generator and flipped on the switch.

Me either.
posted by quin at 8:42 AM on August 25, 2010

That microwave video was worth every set of conjoined triplets he's going to have.
posted by 1-2punch at 8:46 AM on August 25, 2010

Galactic Newsflash! Planet Earth swallowed by artificial black hole that popped up in the Czech Republic.
posted by Redhush at 9:29 AM on August 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

Reminds me of wbeaty, just less sane.
posted by Evilspork at 10:18 AM on August 25, 2010

Bill Beaty is so awesome that people are reminded of him in his own posts.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 11:30 AM on August 25, 2010 [4 favorites]

Most of these are insanely dangerous, but if that microwave magneto is really putting out 12W, why would it be dangerous to put your hand in front of it? It's not ionizing radiation...

(Not a rhetorical question - I'm really curious why it would be dangerous)
posted by phrontist at 11:48 AM on August 25, 2010

Jesus Christ he's a one man suicide pact.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 12:35 PM on August 25, 2010

Mythbusters, allow me to introduce you to Jackass. Jackass, this is my friend Mythbusters. Now you two don't do anything I wouldn't ... OH MY GOD
posted by localroger at 3:02 PM on August 25, 2010 [4 favorites]

The pinkness of the bathroom made me wonder if he's living with his mother, or a wife or girlfriend, and if so, how much yelling takes place in regards to these experiments.
posted by Countess Elena at 4:54 PM on August 25, 2010

> really curious why it would be dangerous

That particular one's fairly safe, but most of his other magnetronu demos are not. Take note that his youtube page has 192 uploads at present. Watch for the droplet of melted copper giving off a musical chirp as it falls through water(!)
posted by billb at 11:16 PM on August 25, 2010

This looks and sounds like something out of a David Lynch movie.

posted by codacorolla at 1:10 PM on August 26, 2010

codacorolla, that's only like a David Lynch movie if the wand is being held by a midget. And it's being played backwards.
posted by localroger at 7:36 PM on August 26, 2010