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I got the parts from Mouser and hooked it up. It does not really work. There is a tiny flash, but it is even dimmer than hooking up a regular 10MM LED between the negative terminal and the battery.
As I looked at the setup, another problem became more pronounced. The battery really does not like being hooked up to the capacitor. I noticed that the direct short of the battery and the capacitor is not for a moment or two, but for nearly the entire time. The battery is charging the cap until the spark gap fires, then charging again. That is the same as having a dead short the entire time. That won't work.
So far, the only thing that can be hooked up "dead short" fashion is an electrostatic volt meter. The Tera-ohm resistance prevents the battery from "feeling" bad.
The other suggestion that uses a capacitor suffers from the same problem.
I really appreciate all the assistance that the forum members have provided, but it looks like it can't be done without harming the battery.
I did notice one very interesting thing. I will probably start another thread that describes a small, but interesting thing that happens when I have a 10MM LED hooked up after the negative terminal and before the negative terminal of the battery. The swinger delivers the 4 nanoamp charge to the negative terminel, the charge lights the LED (very dimly), then the swinger returns to the positive terminal to gather more charge. What is interesting is that when the, now depleted, swinger touches the positive terminal, the LED blinks again. That surprised me. It seems very interesting.
Registered Member #834
Joined: Tue Jun 12 2007, 10:57PM
Location: Brazil
Posts: 644
The capacitor is there to accumulate energy to flash the LED more brightly. There is no way to light a LED without consuming energy, of course. Resistors would not help. They would consume energy and reduce the energy delivered to the LED. Please provide a drawing of the system where the LED blinks when the swinger touches both terminals. Try a neon lamp instead of the LED.
The capacitor is there to accumulate energy to flash the LED more brightly. There is no way to light a LED without consuming energy, of course. Resistors would not help. They would consume energy and reduce the energy delivered to the LED. Please provide a drawing of the system where the LED blinks when the swinger touches both terminals. Try a neon lamp instead of the LED.
Antonio, The setup where the light flashes each time the swinger touches one side or the other is the older setup. It is the one where the LED's are attached between the negative swinger terminal, and the negative battery terminal. I have enclosed the original sketch, The only difference is that there is no capacitor or spark gap.
To be very clear, the flash occurs as the swinger touches either the negative terminal, which would be expected, or the positive terminal, which seems very strange to me.
I have tried a neon. It works OK, but just like the LED, too faint to be of any use...except in the dark, where you can barely see it.
Registered Member #834
Joined: Tue Jun 12 2007, 10:57PM
Location: Brazil
Posts: 644
With this schematic, the LED may really light up when the pendulum touches both plates. When it touches the negative plate, the charge that comes from the pendulum goes through the LED. When it touches the positive plate, the charge that goes to it comes in part from the negative plate, passing through the LED again. The effect is possibly more interesting with two LEDs, one at each side of the battery. I could try to make the same using an electrostatic machine, as the rotating doubler of a previous video.
With this schematic, the LED may really light up when the pendulum touches both plates. When it touches the negative plate, the charge that comes from the pendulum goes through the LED. When it touches the positive plate, the charge that goes to it comes in part from the negative plate, passing through the LED again. The effect is possibly more interesting with two LEDs, one at each side of the battery. I could try to make the same using an electrostatic machine, as the rotating doubler of a previous video.
Antonio, Your explanation makes perfect sense. No big mystery after all...just lack of knowledge on my part.
Registered Member #834
Joined: Tue Jun 12 2007, 10:57PM
Location: Brazil
Posts: 644
I tried a similar setup using that machine of the video as power supply. The pendulum works without problems, but I didn't see any light with LEDs or neon lamps at the pendulum touches. My pendulum was small and with a different geometry, however. It's also difficult to keep well regulated the voltage produced by the machine, and the neon lamps had a tendency to light dimly following the ripple in the voltage. The voltage was higher too, probably around 2 kV.
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Light LED with 4 nanoamps
