Well, here is what I did. I do admit that I also want to build something like JohnF just did (motor generator) but perhaps on a smaller scale, as in a small 24 volt DC servo driving a 24v stepper motor used as the generator....For one thing, that looks like just plain fun to fabricate and be amazing with. You can really get the volts out of a stepper even not turning it too fast if the power is in-range for you, and they are real cheap these days. Rectify both sets of windings (phases) and get a nice low-ripple output.
First, the magic screwdriver:
- Screwdriver for HV, made of fiberglass. Note ground between me and the business end...tested to 40kv, probably good for more.
I keep this around, it's useful.
This is the setup I had going then. I used some more of those fiberglass rods to support a little table floating off ground, and used full sized pots to control several small HV sources run off gel cells for the electron gun stuff. I used full sized pots with big slots so it was easy to adjust them.
- Overall setup
As a side note, you can parallel those CCFL's to get more current, after rectification. They might just parallel fine without that, and get into sync, I've not tried with these but it's worked with other things. You can also cut the ground track on the transformer secondary and have a bit of float that way too - but not any 30kv, just enough for noise purposes when killing ground loops and so on.
The thing sitting down on the main table with red/blue wires is an iso-ply, in this case a 300v regulated one (gas tubes). They're way cool, only a few pf coupling in<>out and would take oil immersion to do high KV, but would take it. I happen to know the guy who designed them from way back, but he's long out of that business. They show up at hamfests sometimes -- and no one knows what they are, so they go cheap. Nice thing to have laying around.
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.