For a guy who loves math, I sure am bad at arithmetic. When you see 33.15nF, that should be 3.315nF. The good news is, that means my estimate calculation is actually closer to the reality. Yay!
This by FAR....BY FAR....the best presentation on RUclips of a DIY capacitor and their abilities. Especially the realtime pushing and crumpling of the capacitor as it is on the scope. This video needs millions of views.
I think the way you demonstrated how the capacitance changes when you press on the plate is the main principle driving touch screen technology, pretty darn cool
"Fun and learning." Those are the best reasons to do anything, really. I like your channel. We're kinda in the same boat: Know the math, but lack the electronics knowledge. Keep em coming 👏
I legitimately watch the entire 15 mins. I love it. By far the best 15 mins learning about capacitors than I could've learned in years of college education. Thank you!!! Keep it up my dude! You gained another subscriber today!
I've been doing this for years now for a living but I am dog terrible at explaining things, I watched your video and thought it would make a lot of sense to a friend to explain some things, I want you to know that these people with hateful comments that you mentioned at the end have absolutely no grasp of the joy some people get from learning and anything they think they can form a discussion on is pointless to explain and will never be capable of teaching, kinda of a lengthy comment so: great video, good job, good energy, and keep it up!!
This was exactly what I was looking for and more. For years I didn't understand how capacitors worked but a physical description sets me on the right track. Thank you!
This is both brilliant (and valuable info) because it shows a real world demonstration of how a capacitor works (well, enough for us who know very little about electronics or kids trying to learn), fulfils our curiosity and this is how many of us learn best. I hope you come back to make more videos in the future. Thank you!
Love it! Just for the sake of it, marvelous. Often think about doing something like this but seldom find the time.. Thank you so much for doing it for me and everyone!
:) Probably not a foil transistor, but foil and selenium (vaporized) could replace a diode. Theoretically, it would be possible to make a "switch" from such diodes, which is quite close to a transistor. :)
I watched your entire presentation. I randomly have thoughts and today you helped me. I believe when we do something for fun it heals the cynical parts of us. Thank you and I hope you continue your journey.
Your videos are Einstonian. Great work professor. I love your video because it not only tells us how to make something but to fully understand the idea and principle behind them. You are a GREAT teacher. I love you knowledge that you share. Thank you so much.
Right then. Just for fun and learning, and inspired by your work, I'm going to try to make a variable capacitor out of some toilet roll cardboard tubes and aluminium foil. I've got two subtly different roll diameters that I can cover with foil and vary the mesh. I'll do it as part of "working from home" as we all are during these times of social distancing. Cheers from Melbourne Australia!
Just a comment since you mentioned the 5RC time constant rule. In your typical lessons, where the proffesor has various capacitors on his desk (to make the famous discharge, generating screams, he goes on to tell you tells you that a cap is 'safe' if you let it discharge for 5RC...BEWARE! This does not always apply. For those monster 200lb caps, 5RC discharges will discharge over 99% energy, but that tiny fraction left can be instantly lethal! What I do is discharge to 5RC, then sccrewdriver short what is left (quite a spark sometimes), then quickly put the thin shorting wire across the terminals. Also, even if you wait 20RC time constants, leaving the cap unshorted, and check it the next day, the energy can build back, (WAY UP!)...enough for a violent screwdriver firecracker. GREAT VIDEO!!
I like the simplicity of your explaination Very exact !!! Don't listen to what people say , I don't But back to your capacitor There are other things that you can do than just building a capacitor (I'm speaking about the information , this knowledge) with this information 🙂🙂🙂 Excellent video 👍👍👍
I think I may try a similar 'journaling' approach to topics I'm learning. It might help me with shyness/ extemporaneous speaking / organizing and motivating myself to study things
Great explanation! Thank you Just one thing, at 7:00 you say when the transistor is "closed", is charging the capacitor and when is "open" its shorting the capacitor... but it is the other way around :)
A capacitor is not meant to be a primary power source because it can't store large amounts of power, so you wouldn't "light up an LED" with it, unless you just wanted to blink the LED on briefly for some reason.
No, this is not stupid. We made aluminum foil paper capacitors when we were learning RCL circuits in high school. It is called "modeling". We made inductors from magnet wire and steel nails, and made resistors from carbon pressed into small cylinders. We made batteries from a nickle, penny, and paper soaked in salt water. We made a diode with a tungsten needle and a tiny piece of slightly impure silicon. These are the building blocks of modern electronics. By building these crude models were learned the math that is behind the technology.
Hey you’ve probably come across this by now, there’s another factor for multilayer capacitors, multiply by n(layers)-1 now I’m not sure if that means separate layers or if you were to take the same capacitor and role it. Making the capacitance go up by that much. Anyway great video.
Yep, I already did one copper tape video and will do many more because it's cool (including the conductive adhesive). Using the tape to make a capacitor would be a waste, though, since it would take so much manual effort and foil is cheaper. Copper tape to make an inductor or electromagnet, though, now there's an idea.
You just reminded me of the 10 mylar emergency blankets that I want to play with to make an capacitor. Wonder if it will work. I'll let you know if I get around to it... Maybe two of them on top of each other will do the trick. Just have to find a way to make the connection with the very thin Aluminium film between the plastic coating.
Your math skillz.amaze me - I always just turn to calculators online. Old caps used to be made from oiled paper - I think the permittivity improves? Oh dear, I looked it up, oiled paper caps are a whole thing... sigh. Anyway, love your videos!
I wonder how interesting would it get to do capacitors of different metals, like aluminium and copper. And how they're affected in terms of frequency. Will it still be like i = C dU / dt or will it be another thing. Btw, is it over between inductances and capacitances ? Wouldn't it be great to have a third thing of another dimension
I'll have to experiment but I'm not sure how else it could work... how do you increase the voltage to a specific voltage? 5V instead 12V or 24V... just adding more plate space would just increase capacitance right? none of these videos have explained that... I did an experiment with adding more to the dielectric but double the paper and it was the same voltage... Tried a bunch of different ways and they're not charging... as if they need a diode or something but that's not how its suppose to work right?
I made my own in the past.. It would be nice to make a small one, say for .005mfd then put in a container then pour clear or colored resin and make a permanent mold. Presto, now I have a capacitor.
Hi, my name is Emilio and I live in Brussels Belgium, I am a luthier and in my quest to do as much as possible myself, I would like to manufacture my own 0.047uf and 0.022uf paper-in-oil capacitors professionally, make one it's easy but one that gets a professional finish isn't. I would like to know if you can help me, what kind of machine I can use, how to give the correct coating that is hard like bumblebees, or has an aluminum can. Thank you very much for taking the time to read this message.
I make them with empty jars and aluminium foil with the kids. Our favourite april fool gag is to drop a chocolate wrapped in plastic into the jar...which is glued to an old table in the garden. Charge the sucker up....with a van de graf and a hidden wire. I was really proud when the youngest turned up with a wooden skewer,instead of shorting it with a wire. My favourite experiment is the Kelvin water dropper,simply because it looks bizarre enough to be a scam,but when the kids examine it they assume there's a hidden power source. . Simplest trick to set up requires you to dress in nylon,drag your feet whilst on a suitable carpet whilst your arms and legs are spread out.... walk up behind your target...place your pinky next to their earlobe.....and bring your other arm down...bring legs together. 😸this reduces your surface area just enough to make the spark if you were sufficiently charged,if not...shuffle off and recharge and repeat.
Pretty cool 😎 wonder if you got the paper wet and let it dry onto the foil if it would stick ? Like all the only times it does when you actually dont want it to 😂
If you find this diy capacitor interesting then you should make a layden jar or a few of them and put a very high voltage on them and see what happens. I made those paper and alu foil caps too and also the layden jars that I use to experiment with my ZVS driver circuit which is capable to output about 150KV from my flyback transformer... Yes it's really 150 Kilo Volt or One Hundred Fifty Thousand Volt and when I connect my Layden Jars all kind of interesting and weird things start to happen and the sound coming off the discharge sparks is unbelievable hard and violent, it makes me jump every time when I get the first big spark. Without the layden jars I can pull the electrode away about 15cm and according to science every 1mm through air that a spark can jump is about 1000 volt up to 3000 volt, I'm being conservative to use 1000 volt for every millimeter, so 150mm times 1000volt is 150000volt and that's continues which is very dangerous... Especially when it's that much voltage and several ampere, I measured it to be just below 13 ampere... It's crazy I know but I like to do dangerous experiments and I'm still alive so don't worry about me, I know what I'm doing otherwise I couldn't tell you about it. Cool thing about the layden jars is that I once touched the glass when my ZVS driver was running and it looked like a plasma bowl and I could feel the energy buzzing in my hand which was really strange and not something I would try to do again any time soon because it too dangerous and stupid so never try to do that yourself. Best regards, Ricardo Penders
so i am not quite in the same boat but yeah for fun and learning... so i took a roll of foil tape, and a roll of fiberglass reinforced Teflon tape as dielectric, and made a few of these capacitors. I rolled them and have them tightly bound in 1/4" thick rubber hoses, yet i have not been able to read a charge on them after attaching them to a charger... i am afraid to connect them to a car battery. the foil tape is (Shurtape AF973) cut to 2.5" wide and 3' in length the Teflon is from Uline (S-13673 3Mil Fiberglass tape) my thoughts were the charger is trying to use an ac mode and not a direct charge. my multimeter tells me there is no connection between the two 3' foil plates and that the foil is conductive... any thoughts?
Years ago I came across a good deal for a high end handleld DVM in a pawn shop and I had the money at the time so I snagged it. I didnt have it very long before my dad had a fun experiment. We stacked up mylar and aluminum foil to make a capacitor. The lesson he wanted to teach, I should mention he was an electronic engineer, was that if you compressed the stack it would generate a voltage, and if you release the pressure it should spring back a bit and while doing so the voltage would go opposite polarity. So I hooked up my schmancy meter to it and we tried it. By golly look at that, if you could hook that up to a mechanical oscillator of some sort you would have a generator. So we messed with it, and I wish he would have warned me cause he knew. I balled up a fist and smacked it. Blew the s*** out of my schmancy meter. I have never paid more than $25 bucks for a meter since, the $8 one is close enough for anything I am messing with and should I ever be compelled to smack a stack again I wont be so heartbroken from my own ignorance, the lesson will be a lot cheaper. I came across that stack of mylar and aluminum the other day, 30 years later. Just cause, I'm gonna go count the layers for ya. Foil is .002", mylar .006 and area is 7x12. One caveat, among others is the foil has a 1/2 square grid embossed into it havent seen that in a long time and that may have helped a little with springback separation. Seems to me like that used to have more layers to it and there is a stack of tissue paper on top and a single aluminum layer was out of place so I dont know what it originally was. I guess the moral to the story is, put some kind of a known load on it because there is no telling how high the voltage went with the tiny load of a DVM. Since I am storying anyway heres another, related deal. I worked in a shop that fabricated stuff out of plastic sheet, mostly acrylic but lots of other stuff. We got a job rounding the corners on a bunch of signs that were made of 1/2 in HDPE with an aluminum sheet bonded on and printed. I wasnt till about 6 or 8 layers that when you lay one on the stack and go to line them up it would zap you hard, like getting hit between the shoulders with a baseball bat. Nobody wanted to do that job. I tried a pair of latex gloves and that cured the problem for a little while, then I got it again and I think it was even worse when the voltage got high enough to make it through the latex. made a plate that would lay on top of the stack, attached to a wire with a 1meg resistor on the other end, taped to a pvc pipe, touch the resistor to the one you are going to stack, then clamp the wire to the one you are going to stack. Three of us who got zapped by that thing were sore for days. I feel sorry for the poor suckers on the other end who had to unstack those without scratching them if they didnt know some basic electronics!
Oh and what I am looking for is a cost effective way to make a high capacity, low leakage capacitor, say 80V and the bigger the better on the value. 1000F+ Those ultracaps are kinda spendy.
Cool, I was just playing with that. I needed a variable capacitor for my radio circuit and found that this technique works well. I used thin cardboard and super 77 spray adhesive. remember the pinwheel calculators. or the slide calculators. just make your capacitor like that and it works ok. saved me a month to wait to try it out. I used aluminum soda can aluminum instead of aluminum foil. I've been trying to keep up with the math, wow it is hard to remember all the names of things. but repetition will prevail! keep up the video's I find them interesting. Also I have to ask, maybe I missed something somewhere? whats up with the headphones?
The headphones are just for a rigid mount for my microphone, which is the little lapel mic at the end of the arm. With my hair and beard I have not found any other way to mount a microphone that I like or that will even stay where I put it. And also, I took joy in destroying those headphones because they were one of the biggest wastes of a lot of money I ever made, and at least now they're serving a purpose.
For a guy who loves math, I sure am bad at arithmetic. When you see 33.15nF, that should be 3.315nF. The good news is, that means my estimate calculation is actually closer to the reality. Yay!
Hey thanks
Thank you for this video!
Please don't mind the haters! ;)
Dude, the hole in your headphones = subscribe🤣
This by FAR....BY FAR....the best presentation on RUclips of a DIY capacitor and their abilities. Especially the realtime pushing and crumpling of the capacitor as it is on the scope.
This video needs millions of views.
Who would win?
A high school teacher
or
A random bearded guy from youtube
Beautiful beard guy wins
I think the way you demonstrated how the capacitance changes when you press on the plate is the main principle driving touch screen technology, pretty darn cool
Thank you you get A+
"Fun and learning." Those are the best reasons to do anything, really. I like your channel. We're kinda in the same boat: Know the math, but lack the electronics knowledge. Keep em coming 👏
Thank you for this excellent video.I am an electronic engineer for over 30 years now and i really enjoyed this video.👍
I legitimately watch the entire 15 mins. I love it. By far the best 15 mins learning about capacitors than I could've learned in years of college education. Thank you!!! Keep it up my dude! You gained another subscriber today!
very entertaining and very informative, every one learns in a different way and I think you get it over perfectly. thanks
Great explanation! Fun to see the farad value change as you press down on the capacitor.
I've been doing this for years now for a living but I am dog terrible at explaining things, I watched your video and thought it would make a lot of sense to a friend to explain some things, I want you to know that these people with hateful comments that you mentioned at the end have absolutely no grasp of the joy some people get from learning and anything they think they can form a discussion on is pointless to explain and will never be capable of teaching, kinda of a lengthy comment so: great video, good job, good energy, and keep it up!!
Also +1 subscriber
This is actually not stupid. And its practical. By pressing down on his foil capacitor - he has made a pressure switch.
This is definitely not stupid, it's super cool, thank you so much. Your videos are very fun to watch, and great for learning.
This was exactly what I was looking for and more. For years I didn't understand how capacitors worked but a physical description sets me on the right track. Thank you!
I'm a big fan of your videos and style, keep on doing your thing! This was a really neat one, thanks.
This is both brilliant (and valuable info) because it shows a real world demonstration of how a capacitor works (well, enough for us who know very little about electronics or kids trying to learn), fulfils our curiosity and this is how many of us learn best. I hope you come back to make more videos in the future. Thank you!
Love it! Just for the sake of it, marvelous. Often think about doing something like this but seldom find the time.. Thank you so much for doing it for me and everyone!
Paper circuits are getting interesting! So make me a paper and foil transistor and I’ll be really impressed. 😂
:) Probably not a foil transistor, but foil and selenium (vaporized) could replace a diode. Theoretically, it would be possible to make a "switch" from such diodes, which is quite close to a transistor. :)
Yes to learning through having fun. Thanks for your efforts - much appreciated.
This is the best video with all the info you need to make one to a specific value! Everyone else will just make it and show it charging.
I watched your entire presentation. I randomly have thoughts and today you helped me. I believe when we do something for fun it heals the cynical parts of us. Thank you and I hope you continue your journey.
Great work! Thank you for sharing!
Your videos are Einstonian. Great work professor. I love your video because it not only tells us how to make something but to fully understand the idea and principle behind them. You are a GREAT teacher. I love you knowledge that you share. Thank you so much.
Dude had a blast , enjoy the context of you getting breath to finish a thought
Lovin the Demo.
Thank you.
Schooling, experience, knowledge.
More please
Right then. Just for fun and learning, and inspired by your work, I'm going to try to make a variable capacitor out of some toilet roll cardboard tubes and aluminium foil. I've got two subtly different roll diameters that I can cover with foil and vary the mesh. I'll do it as part of "working from home" as we all are during these times of social distancing. Cheers from Melbourne Australia!
Glad to have inspired! Stay frosty down there.
Nice explanation, keep it up!
Excellent, especially the pressing down bit. And there's nothing stupid about learning by experimentation.
great video thanks
This was great, thank you!
Excellent. I enjoy learning this way.
For the trolls out there: "You are learning along with me" -there is no better way to put it. Great Video. Thanks!! Got Subscribed
Damn this is thorough, great video kind sir!
thank you man im going to do this and this helped a lot
This really helped me for my only project ❤️
Thank you for show us this. ❤️
Very good experiment, i use this demo when teaching capacitance, but i use ready made components.
Very good and packed with info
Cool demonstration.
Bro, That's awesome 👏
I don't subscribe to many channels but I'm subscribed here. Keep up the good work. Thank you.
Cool. I'm going to go make a homemade taser out of paper and tinfoil now
Love your headset mod. :)
This is awesome 😍
Thank you so much for this video!
Hello. I did the experiment, put the aluminum and put the regular paper insulation, but you did not work with me. What is the reason?
Just a comment since you mentioned the 5RC time constant rule. In your typical lessons, where the proffesor has various capacitors on his desk (to make the famous discharge, generating screams, he goes on to tell you tells you that a cap is 'safe' if you let it discharge for 5RC...BEWARE! This does not always apply. For those monster 200lb caps, 5RC discharges will discharge over 99% energy, but that tiny fraction left can be instantly lethal!
What I do is discharge to 5RC, then sccrewdriver short what is left (quite a spark sometimes), then quickly put the thin shorting wire across the terminals.
Also, even if you wait 20RC time constants, leaving the cap unshorted, and check it the next day, the energy can build back, (WAY UP!)...enough for a violent screwdriver firecracker.
GREAT VIDEO!!
subbed, I like your spirit!
I like the simplicity of your explaination Very exact !!! Don't listen to what people say , I don't But back to your capacitor There are other things that you can do than just building a capacitor (I'm speaking about the information , this knowledge) with this information 🙂🙂🙂 Excellent video 👍👍👍
So cool thank you!
I think I may try a similar 'journaling' approach to topics I'm learning. It might help me with shyness/ extemporaneous speaking / organizing and motivating myself to study things
Enjoyed the video. You've got a great teaching voice.
Great explanation! Thank you
Just one thing, at 7:00 you say when the transistor is "closed", is charging the capacitor and when is "open" its shorting the capacitor... but it is the other way around :)
I like your style…. Keep em coming!
Simply put...Well done ma guy.
This is cool! That’s how they can be cylinders😯
Thank you. All the best.
It's not useless. I'm kinda using it for a school assignment and thanks ♥️
Great video. Put sturdy non metallic boards on either side and use a screw clamp on it?
Thanks this is a good video. How big a capacitor would I need to light up an LED?
A capacitor is not meant to be a primary power source because it can't store large amounts of power, so you wouldn't "light up an LED" with it, unless you just wanted to blink the LED on briefly for some reason.
A potato with coppper electrodes stuck in it would probably light a led.
No, this is not stupid. We made aluminum foil paper capacitors when we were learning RCL circuits in high school. It is called "modeling". We made inductors from magnet wire and steel nails, and made resistors from carbon pressed into small cylinders. We made batteries from a nickle, penny, and paper soaked in salt water. We made a diode with a tungsten needle and a tiny piece of slightly impure silicon. These are the building blocks of modern electronics. By building these crude models were learned the math that is behind the technology.
Hey you’ve probably come across this by now, there’s another factor for multilayer capacitors, multiply by n(layers)-1 now I’m not sure if that means separate layers or if you were to take the same capacitor and role it. Making the capacitance go up by that much. Anyway great video.
Which is the positive electrode and which is the negative one?
How do you calculate the maximum voltage it can withstand?
Hello. Excuse me Sir. I have to do it as a project for a subject. What are the materials you used to do it? It is a fixed or variable capacitor?
EXCELLENT VIDEO ALL AMAZING FOR MAKE CAPACITOR IN HOME
Thanks for keep the scince is simply! Great video! Did you planned for made electrolitic capacitor?
Bravo.......great job........like the capastor free form.......if u separate the plates .......how long will they stay in harmony ......cheers
I like them headphones man.
I remember making caps like this when I was in jr high.
Did you try the copper tape? It’s adhesive is different. Also, it could be just one long strap wrapped into a cylinder.
Yep, I already did one copper tape video and will do many more because it's cool (including the conductive adhesive). Using the tape to make a capacitor would be a waste, though, since it would take so much manual effort and foil is cheaper. Copper tape to make an inductor or electromagnet, though, now there's an idea.
Anyone else remember the guy from the Simpsons with the beard/pony tail and the comic book obsession. This dudes soul animal
I want a cap that's more like 100 farads & 16v...
how much aluminum foil will I need?
You just reminded me of the 10 mylar emergency blankets that I want to play with to make an capacitor. Wonder if it will work. I'll let you know if I get around to it... Maybe two of them on top of each other will do the trick. Just have to find a way to make the connection with the very thin Aluminium film between the plastic coating.
your headphones surprised me
thank u random bearded guy. i love your way of explaining! lol
U'r video helpful and different from other
Your math skillz.amaze me - I always just turn to calculators online. Old caps used to be made from oiled paper - I think the permittivity improves? Oh dear, I looked it up, oiled paper caps are a whole thing... sigh.
Anyway, love your videos!
I wonder how interesting would it get to do capacitors of different metals, like aluminium and copper. And how they're affected in terms of frequency. Will it still be like i = C dU / dt or will it be another thing.
Btw, is it over between inductances and capacitances ? Wouldn't it be great to have a third thing of another dimension
Hmm foldable circuits that can be worn as a glove... This glove will send signals as per varying capacitors. How cool is that
You could potentially experiment for days with this idea, seeing how different compostions and construction methods affect the measurement.
I never new that tinfoil is conductive.
I'll have to experiment but I'm not sure how else it could work... how do you increase the voltage to a specific voltage? 5V instead 12V or 24V... just adding more plate space would just increase capacitance right? none of these videos have explained that... I did an experiment with adding more to the dielectric but double the paper and it was the same voltage... Tried a bunch of different ways and they're not charging... as if they need a diode or something but that's not how its suppose to work right?
Your f’n hilarious... 🤣 love it 🤙
I made my own in the past.. It would be nice to make a small one, say for .005mfd then put in a container then pour clear or colored resin and make a permanent mold. Presto, now I have a capacitor.
Hi, my name is Emilio and I live in Brussels Belgium, I am a luthier and in my quest to do as much as possible myself, I would like to manufacture my own 0.047uf and 0.022uf paper-in-oil capacitors professionally, make one it's easy but one that gets a professional finish isn't. I would like to know if you can help me, what kind of machine I can use, how to give the correct coating that is hard like bumblebees, or has an aluminum can. Thank you very much for taking the time to read this message.
thank you teacher!
I make them with empty jars and aluminium foil with the kids.
Our favourite april fool gag is to drop a chocolate wrapped in plastic into the jar...which is glued to an old table in the garden.
Charge the sucker up....with a van de graf and a hidden wire.
I was really proud when the youngest turned up with a wooden skewer,instead of shorting it with a wire.
My favourite experiment is the Kelvin water dropper,simply because it looks bizarre enough to be a scam,but when the kids examine it they assume there's a hidden power source.
.
Simplest trick to set up requires you to dress in nylon,drag your feet whilst on a suitable carpet whilst your arms and legs are spread out....
walk up behind your target...place your pinky next to their earlobe.....and bring your other arm down...bring legs together.
😸this reduces your surface area just enough to make the spark if you were sufficiently charged,if not...shuffle off and recharge and repeat.
Amazing.
I am a new follower of your channel and I enjoyed a lot of information
you are the Man! love it man , dont listen to the haters...
I like your videos. I'm learning about old elecronics, Can you doa tube diagram possibly with a 6v6 tube ?? 12 volts audio in amp..
👍 great
Eo is just because Farad is not a bicycle.
But how to make proper contact to an aluminium foil strip ?
Pretty cool 😎 wonder if you got the paper wet and let it dry onto the foil if it would stick ? Like all the only times it does when you actually dont want it to 😂
If you find this diy capacitor interesting then you should make a layden jar or a few of them and put a very high voltage on them and see what happens.
I made those paper and alu foil caps too and also the layden jars that I use to experiment with my ZVS driver circuit which is capable to output about 150KV from my flyback transformer... Yes it's really 150 Kilo Volt or One Hundred Fifty Thousand Volt and when I connect my Layden Jars all kind of interesting and weird things start to happen and the sound coming off the discharge sparks is unbelievable hard and violent, it makes me jump every time when I get the first big spark.
Without the layden jars I can pull the electrode away about 15cm and according to science every 1mm through air that a spark can jump is about 1000 volt up to 3000 volt, I'm being conservative to use 1000 volt for every millimeter, so 150mm times 1000volt is 150000volt and that's continues which is very dangerous... Especially when it's that much voltage and several ampere, I measured it to be just below 13 ampere... It's crazy I know but I like to do dangerous experiments and I'm still alive so don't worry about me, I know what I'm doing otherwise I couldn't tell you about it.
Cool thing about the layden jars is that I once touched the glass when my ZVS driver was running and it looked like a plasma bowl and I could feel the energy buzzing in my hand which was really strange and not something I would try to do again any time soon because it too dangerous and stupid so never try to do that yourself.
Best regards,
Ricardo Penders
so i am not quite in the same boat but yeah for fun and learning...
so i took a roll of foil tape, and a roll of fiberglass reinforced Teflon tape as dielectric, and made a few of these capacitors. I rolled them and have them tightly bound in 1/4" thick rubber hoses, yet i have not been able to read a charge on them after attaching them to a charger... i am afraid to connect them to a car battery.
the foil tape is (Shurtape AF973) cut to 2.5" wide and 3' in length
the Teflon is from Uline (S-13673 3Mil Fiberglass tape)
my thoughts were the charger is trying to use an ac mode and not a direct charge.
my multimeter tells me there is no connection between the two 3' foil plates and that the foil is conductive...
any thoughts?
Years ago I came across a good deal for a high end handleld DVM in a pawn shop and I had the money at the time so I snagged it. I didnt have it very long before my dad had a fun experiment. We stacked up mylar and aluminum foil to make a capacitor. The lesson he wanted to teach, I should mention he was an electronic engineer, was that if you compressed the stack it would generate a voltage, and if you release the pressure it should spring back a bit and while doing so the voltage would go opposite polarity. So I hooked up my schmancy meter to it and we tried it. By golly look at that, if you could hook that up to a mechanical oscillator of some sort you would have a generator. So we messed with it, and I wish he would have warned me cause he knew. I balled up a fist and smacked it. Blew the s*** out of my schmancy meter. I have never paid more than $25 bucks for a meter since, the $8 one is close enough for anything I am messing with and should I ever be compelled to smack a stack again I wont be so heartbroken from my own ignorance, the lesson will be a lot cheaper. I came across that stack of mylar and aluminum the other day, 30 years later. Just cause, I'm gonna go count the layers for ya. Foil is .002", mylar .006 and area is 7x12. One caveat, among others is the foil has a 1/2 square grid embossed into it havent seen that in a long time and that may have helped a little with springback separation. Seems to me like that used to have more layers to it and there is a stack of tissue paper on top and a single aluminum layer was out of place so I dont know what it originally was. I guess the moral to the story is, put some kind of a known load on it because there is no telling how high the voltage went with the tiny load of a DVM.
Since I am storying anyway heres another, related deal. I worked in a shop that fabricated stuff out of plastic sheet, mostly acrylic but lots of other stuff. We got a job rounding the corners on a bunch of signs that were made of 1/2 in HDPE with an aluminum sheet bonded on and printed. I wasnt till about 6 or 8 layers that when you lay one on the stack and go to line them up it would zap you hard, like getting hit between the shoulders with a baseball bat. Nobody wanted to do that job. I tried a pair of latex gloves and that cured the problem for a little while, then I got it again and I think it was even worse when the voltage got high enough to make it through the latex. made a plate that would lay on top of the stack, attached to a wire with a 1meg resistor on the other end, taped to a pvc pipe, touch the resistor to the one you are going to stack, then clamp the wire to the one you are going to stack. Three of us who got zapped by that thing were sore for days. I feel sorry for the poor suckers on the other end who had to unstack those without scratching them if they didnt know some basic electronics!
Oh and what I am looking for is a cost effective way to make a high capacity, low leakage capacitor, say 80V and the bigger the better on the value. 1000F+ Those ultracaps are kinda spendy.
1:05 Hilarious
Plain simple thank you
Ty I learned something
Great , its cool
Love your voice, dude. Or the way of speaking, I guess.
Cool, I was just playing with that. I needed a variable capacitor for my radio circuit and found that this technique works well. I used thin cardboard and super 77 spray adhesive. remember the pinwheel calculators. or the slide calculators. just make your capacitor like that and it works ok. saved me a month to wait to try it out. I used aluminum soda can aluminum instead of aluminum foil.
I've been trying to keep up with the math, wow it is hard to remember all the names of things. but repetition will prevail! keep up the video's I find them interesting.
Also I have to ask, maybe I missed something somewhere? whats up with the headphones?
The headphones are just for a rigid mount for my microphone, which is the little lapel mic at the end of the arm. With my hair and beard I have not found any other way to mount a microphone that I like or that will even stay where I put it. And also, I took joy in destroying those headphones because they were one of the biggest wastes of a lot of money I ever made, and at least now they're serving a purpose.
@@simplyput2796 Ok I get it now. the mic does sound good. we need to invent a beard mic! lol