LightningOnDemand
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2025–2026
11:46 · 7.9M views · Mar 12, 2025
LightningOnDemand revives a pulsed Lorentz plasma cannon, using modern capacitors to extend its range and increase the delivered energy. It is a high-voltage, high-current hobby demonstration.
HN users suggest it to anyone who enjoys extreme high-voltage projects and big capacitor-bank discharges.
5 comments from Hacker News
You might enjoy Lightning On Demand's Lorentz Cannon: this video I does seem like a lot of stuff is needed. He's got 2 tons of capacitors in a stack 20 feet tall to get around 35 feet of range. He although he says: "I was surprised at just how fast the plasma cannon range scaled with increasing drive voltage and how much explosive force the shock wave can deliver to target the data suggests that a plasma cannon with just a 30t high Marx Tower could achieve 1/4 mile range" I know military contractors will have 3 or more orders of magnitude more money to throw at their technology demos, but I suspect there's some cold hard physics which shows it's totally impractical to defend anything more then very small high value targets with a system like that.
> Capacitors are a terrible energy source. They're a pretty good way of storing energy in a way you can deliver it _really really_ fast. Sure, not in a way your carefully designed electronic circuits can make use of it, but if you need a really really big ZAP! capacitors are a reasonable option. After all, clouds and dirt are not the most efficient choice for capacitor plates, and air is not an ideal dielectric, but lightning goes ZAP! quite satisfyingly. As I posted elsewhere here,you might enjoy Lightning On Demand's Lorentz Cannon: this video
The future is now: Check out Lightning On Demand, [LINK] (Tesla tower approach & scientific motivations) & this video (capacitor driven Lorentz plasma cannon demo)
One cannot simply bring up Veritasium without also honouring his arch nemesis ElectroBOOM. [LINK] Others that deserve a mention: styropyro [LINK] The Angry Pixie herder, Uncle Bumblefuck aka AvE: [LINK] And that guy with the multi gigawatt 150,000 volt Lorentz Cannon: this video I’m sure I forgot someone? AlphaPhoenix’s response to Veritasium: [LINK]
This Z-Machine is also featured in 'Firing the Lorentz Plasma Cannon' [1] by Lightning on Demand [2]! [1] this video [2] [LINK]