Advanced Capacitor Theory

[safe]

So, I have collected 11, 2100VDC, 0.91 faraday Capacitors, and 2 unmarked ones from old dumpscore microwaves, . I have 12 more microwaves to dismantle still.

Wow... I didn't realize that these could be obtained so easily. That's great.

Before you injure yourself with impatience you should think about how you might do this. I'm very intrigued.

How much do these that you have now weigh?

Could it be possible to revolutionize not the electric vehicle world, but the ebike world this easily?

Wouldn't that be something... a home constructed supercapacitor ebike that can be charged in an instant...

And by using recycled junk... that's awesome!

It's my understanding that the real trick here is going to be charging and slooooooow discharging. I don't know how EEStor plans to do it, so it's all education right now for me.

 

[safe]

Don't Get Too Excited...

You might be making an error in the capacitance of these things...

MICROWAVE CAPACITOR 2100V .90uf

$11.95 - Electronix Online

1 microfarad = 0.000001 farad

http://www.electronix.com/catalog/product_info.php/cPath/435_238_262/products_id/11073

 

[Link]

I'm pretty sure he means µF.

 

[koonaone]

Aw poop.

You're right, there is a small micron sign before the farrad.

In any case I used 2 pencil leads as electrodes to discharge one, (and a lot of rubber) and got one whack of an arc out of it. This is after the thing sat idle on my porch for 6 months, and for who knows how long before I picked it up at the dump. Some though are already dead.
I don't take any chances with any of them.

I think a few in parallel OR series would make an inteeresting bike guard. Make some of those hot spots just a little BIT hotter for the light fingered set . . . . . It could flash off a bit of the paint job where they touched the bike though so better not.

yours

douglas

ps... enough of an arc and enough transfer of metal to bet you could make an effective spot welder of sorts, with calibration of course.

 

[Link]

In any case I used 2 pencil leads as electrodes to discharge one, (and a lot of rubber) and got one whack of an arc out of it. This is after the thing sat idle on my porch for 6 months, and for who knows how long before I picked it up at the dump. Some though are already dead.
I don't take any chances with any of them.

Carbon + high voltage = major arcage. High voltage cap sans bleeder resistor = danger.

I think a few in parallel OR series would make an inteeresting bike guard. Make some of those hot spots just a little BIT hotter for the light fingered set . . . . . It could flash off a bit of the paint job where they touched the bike though so better not.

I really don't think they would need higher voltage. Really. Also, 1µF at the voltages were talking about here is about enough to power a bike for about MAYBE a few milliseconds IF you were able to convert the high voltage to something manageable with 100% efficiency.

ps... enough of an arc and enough transfer of metal to bet you could make an effective spot welder of sorts, with calibration of course.

High voltage + sustained arc + possibly pulsed and or AC = danger + major EMF + not very good welds (irrespectively). Also, there's the possiblility of death. :?

 

[safe]

Scary Danger

Given the description of the arc you get from a microfarad capacitor imagine the power of a full farad.

That's one million times stronger.

...that's some scary energy to have suddenly jump out of it's cage.

 

[koonaone]

Safe

Now you have me all retrospectivly pensive verging on offensivly defensive.

I have a 2 man post pounder made of 1/2" steel. sort of like a cannon closed at one end. It rings like it's pretty skookum stuff too.

Think thats adequate to contain the beast? Prior postings regarding the more or less instant kinetic energy release hark me back to my esoteric acids, mercury, and glycerine experimentations of youth.

If there is serious actual probability of failure either charging or dis-charging then I would be best to park the experiment for now.
Especially as you say there isn't enough Actual power to do much work.

The reality regarding the danger is obscure to me though:

These things live on peoples kitchen counters

They are shielded with sheet metal I can poke holes in with my pocket knife

Have you ever heard of an "incident", I haven't.

I have a fox that plays games with my chickens every week or two, maybe I could finally win one on him. I wouldn't want to hurt him though, just give him another experience for the foxy racial memory to chew on. We all have to play our part you know.

Anyway. Thanks for the advice, I'll be carefuller now.

yours

douglas

 

[safe]

Especially as you say there isn't enough Actual power to do much work.

Well, if you compare the energy of one of those microwave capacitors to the combined energy of the EEStor capacitor for cars you would have 30 million times more energy in the EEStor capacitor.

30 million times.

So it's dangerous to be using the microwave capacitor, but not that bad... it doesn't get really dangerous until you get into the higher energies. But even the lower energy is going to give enough of a shock to potentially kill you.

Humans can die from shocks as low as 50 volts.

This is one reason that they often make ebikes run at less than 50 volts because that's sort of a general rule for what is safe voltage level and what is not.

The microwave capacitor can hold over 2000 volts... so do the math...

 

[andrew]

The energy stored in a microwave capacitor would not be enough for an explosion. But, maybe it's enough to have some fun shocking stuff though

.5 * .000001 * (2500^2) = 3.125 joules or enough to power a 400w ebike for .0078 seconds.

I was running some numbers on energy storage with ultra capacitors, and they make lead-acid look like the next generation.

 

[safe]

I was running some numbers on energy storage with ultra capacitors, and they make lead-acid look like the next generation.

Me too... the traditional capacitor is just not going to work. You need to be able to store a large charge and at a very high voltage. It's going to involve some sophistication to develop this sort of thing. Probably the ideas will come from particle physics research as a byproduct of needing to produce large energies in a hurry. The latest super collider had some exotic stuff going on, so we will probably see stuff come from that...

 

[Link]

Now you have me all retrospectivly pensive verging on offensivly defensive.

That needs quoting.

I have a 2 man post pounder made of 1/2" steel. sort of like a cannon closed at one end. It rings like it's pretty skookum stuff too.

Think thats adequate to contain the beast? Prior postings regarding the more or less instant kinetic energy release hark me back to my esoteric acids, mercury, and glycerine experimentations of youth.
If there is serious actual probability of failure either charging or dis-charging then I would be best to park the experiment for now.
Especially as you say there isn't enough Actual power to do much work.

Other than the possibility of electrocution, you're okay. They are high voltage, but they don't store all that much energy. And unless you charge them to above their rated voltage, they shouldn't fail without reason for a while.

The reality regarding the danger is obscure to me though:

These things live on peoples kitchen counters

They are shielded with sheet metal I can poke holes in with my pocket knife

Have you ever heard of an "incident", I haven't.

Well, how else are we gonna make frozen burritos? :?

That must be a pretty crappy microwave. Mine is made out of 1/16" sheet steel. Maybe 1/32". (It's not like I've measured.) You'd have to try pretty hard to get into that.

I hear lots of things. But most people aren't messing with the multi-kilovolt circuitry in their microwave.

I have a fox that plays games with my chickens every week or two, maybe I could finally win one on him. I wouldn't want to hurt him though, just give him another experience for the foxy racial memory to chew on. We all have to play our part you know.

There must be some pretty esoteric rules to those games if someone who isn't playing can win. :wink:

Although, something like a big hand buzzer would work better. Especially if it's a small fence. They do like 3kV in probably the microamp range. You won't kill anything, but it will be painful. Caps' do the same, but with thousands of amps over the span of a fraction of a second.

Anyway. Thanks for the advice, I'll be carefuller now.

Please do. Or get video, at least.

 

[fechter]

If you put all the microwave oven caps in parallel, you can charge them with a single transformer.
Then you can get dangerous.

Here's some "fantastically dangerous" experiments: http://amasci.com/amateur/capexpt.html

I have a 1uF, 20kv capacitor that is really really dangerous. E=1/2CV^2, so at 20kv, that a lot of energy!
I zapped an old PDA circuit board with it and it blew the centers out of every chip on the board. Somebody wanted me to try discharging it into a hot dog to see what happens...
I heard salty jello is cool.

 

[safe]

Dilithium Crystals

Dilithium typically occurs as an extremely hard crystalline mineral, which occurs naturally on some planets. When placed in a high frequency electromagnetic field, magnetic eddies are induced in its structure which keep charged particles away from the crystal lattice. This prevents it from reacting with antimatter when so energized, because the antimatter atoms never actually touch it. Therefore, it is used to contain and regulate the annihilation reaction of matter and antimatter in a starship's warp core, which otherwise would explode from the uncontrolled annihilation reaction. Though low-quality artificial crystals can be grown or replicated, they are limited in the power of the reaction they can regulate without fragmenting, and are therefore largely unsuitable for warp drive applications. Due to the need for natural dilithium crystals for interstellar travel, deposits of this material are a highly contested resource, and as such, dilithium crystals have led to more interstellar conflict than all other reasons combined.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilithium_(Star_Trek)

:wink:

http://www.dilithiumcrystal.com/

They are for sale!

 

[OneEye]

Here's to hoping the EESTOR isn't in the same realm of fiction.