Complex Japanese plasmacluster and mist unit

Описание: It seems to be a part of japanese culture now that they stick an ioniser in every product. Each prominent brand has their own version and bold marketing claims, like Sharp with their Plasmacluster units and Panasonic with their surprisingly complex Nanoe units.

This is a self contained rechargeable unit that combines both water or oil haze for humidity or aroma, and a tiny plasmacluster unit that uses two needles (or carbon fibre emitters in modern products), one is at a high negative voltage and one is at a high positive voltage. The vicinity of the needles to each other and their sharpness results in a tiny corona discharge at the ends that causes complex air chemistry effects by stripping apart molecules in the air and letting them recombine in normal and active short-lived variants. The active variants can be used for air sterilising and odour reducing effects.

As predicted this unit was made to Japanese standards with a little bit of over engineering.

No schematics, as the circuit boards are complex, double sided and crammed with hard to identify components that are so small that probing both sides of the board simultaneously is very difficult.

The atomiser PCB seems to be based on a standard boost regulator for the processor, which possibly drives the other boost converter directly to create a higher voltage for the ultrasonic atomiser section. The actual atomiser piezo disk looks like it's across an inductor, which is pulsed by a transistor. The module looks like it has been repurposed from a plain mist generator, and it may have originally been designed for use with a reed relay as a switch to allow magnetic operation without the risk of water ingress.

The main PCB has a processor for control and also acts as a central hub for marshalling power to all the other components via tiny wires and connectors.
It switches other loads like the fan and plasmacluster unit. I think the plasmacluster module may get power and a drive pulse to keep its component count down. I may reverse engineer it, but that will be made very difficult by its small size and the hard resin potting.

Having now taken one apart, the correct procedure for gaining access to these units is probably to remove the base screws and base, disconnect the two wires, noting their positions. Remove the two module retaining screws inside the base, and then carefully spudger/pull the whole unit out of the base making sure you don't damage the switch wires.



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