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Registered Member #3414
Joined: Sun Nov 14 2010, 05:05PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4245
If I'm undestanding this correctly, 3,3nF is far too big a capacitor.
Try a capacitor in the picofarad range. Also, the 'buck converter' charging a larger cap to a smaller voltage may also be worth considering.
I'm probably stating the obvious by suggesting a 'larger battery', that goes against the original purpose of this thread, but paralleling a few Zamboni piles would probably also sort it.
I do think it's worth trying a smaller capacitor, though, and if leakage is a problem with 'commercially available' caps, look at Leyden jars, or other 'home made' capacitors which are designed for 'ultra low leakage'. You certainly have the engineering ability and understanding, but I do see that it's not the leakage that makes it appear to be a 'dead short'.
Normal commercial capacitors really don't have a very high parallel resistance, specially due to surface leakage. When I use them in experiments the first thing to do is to clean their exterior carefully, apply some wax, and dry everything with a hair dryer. You can make a Leyden jar capacitor using a HDPE plastic pot, that has very low leakage. Can these batteries can be recharged?
Antonio, I don't actually know if/how they could be recharged. My gut feeling is probably not, but I really don't know for sure.
If I understand you correctly, are you saying that the internal resistance of a Leyden jar capacitor would be greater than 300 Giga-ohms?
If I'm undestanding this correctly, 3,3nF is far too big a capacitor.
Try a capacitor in the picofarad range. Also, the 'buck converter' charging a larger cap to a smaller voltage may also be worth considering.
I'm probably stating the obvious by suggesting a 'larger battery', that goes against the original purpose of this thread, but paralleling a few Zamboni piles would probably also sort it.
I do think it's worth trying a smaller capacitor, though, and if leakage is a problem with 'commercially available' caps, look at Leyden jars, or other 'home made' capacitors which are designed for 'ultra low leakage'. You certainly have the engineering ability and understanding, but I do see that it's not the leakage that makes it appear to be a 'dead short'.
I will look into the Leyden Jar capacitors, do you believe that they will have an internal resistance greater than 300 Giga-ohms?
Registered Member #4266
Joined: Fri Dec 16 2011, 03:15AM
Location:
Posts: 874
Type of saying the oppsite from Ash Small, but look for a comecial cap with leakage current in the nA, if mA then series them to low the leakage current, try 100-1pF/nF cermic cap with ten in series, and a low diletic constant glue and submerge the caps. Firbeglass resin at about 5cm thick around cermic caps with ten in series, just check the leakage current in the datasheet as thats what is continue drawing power, after X amount of power is drawen the the Al metal will havea full protive oxide layer, and after you then use the charge on that metal plate, it will be difficult to recharge to keep the current supply constant, so starts at 100% then drops to 10% and will stay there untill you remove the layer, thinck Al electlight caps they have leakage current so it will still make power the pile, but at lower levels. Reverse polarity by a high voltage in anti parrellel like back voltage or a 1700volt pile connected plus to plus, will force holes in the oxide layer, and then allow charge to build up at 100% untill its full oxidized again.
Registered Member #834
Joined: Tue Jun 12 2007, 10:57PM
Location: Brazil
Posts: 644
Note that the battery may have been discharged not because of the leakage of the capacitor, but because the battery was repeatedly charging it and lighting the neon lamp. Of course this consumes much more energy than the required to just swing the pendulum. Leakage control at Gohm levels is not easy. Glass is useless as insulator, and even some plastics leak a lot. Surface humidity is the main problem, and if everything is dry plastics as Teflon, HDPE, acrylic and even PVC are excellent insulators.
Registered Member #3414
Joined: Sun Nov 14 2010, 05:05PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4245
According to Wikipedia (table shown on this page: )
Glass is 10x10^10 to 10x10^14 per metre, so not really good enough here, maybe if it's several mm thick.
Fused quartz is 7.5x10^17, which should be plenty good enough.
PET is 10x10^20 ohms per metre, and Teflon is apparently even higher.
All figures are at 20 centigrade.
There may be others. Fused quartz looks interesting., but as Antonio points out, some of the plastics may have advantages.
They will either need to be in dry air, a vacuum, or an insulating gas, most of which, from memory, are pretty toxic. Your machines already contain dry air, don't they?
Is it the leakage that's the main problem, or is it just the current drain charging a large(ish) capacitor that kills the pile?
EDIT: Any capacitor looks lke a 'dead short' until it's charged, then it looks like an 'open circuit' (apart from leakage).
According to Wikipedia (table shown on this page: )
Glass is 10x10^10 to 10x10^14 per metre, so not really good enough here, maybe if it's several mm thick.
Fused quartz is 7.5x10^17, which should be plenty good enough.
PET is 10x10^20 ohms per metre, and Teflon is apparently even higher.
All figures are at 20 centigrade.
There may be others. Fused quartz looks interesting., but as Antonio points out, some of the plastics may have advantages.
They will either need to be in dry air, a vacuum, or an insulating gas, most of which, from memory, are pretty toxic. Your machines already contain dry air, don't they?
Is it the leakage that's the main problem, or is it just the current drain charging a large(ish) capacitor that kills the pile?
EDIT: Any capacitor looks lke a 'dead short' until it's charged, then it looks like an 'open circuit' (apart from leakage).
You and Antonio both made the same point. You may be correct. I tend to defer to P.H.D's in matters of theory. Antonio's (and your) point seems likely. It may indeed be that there is simply a higher draw draining the battery.
whatever the reason, it makes the capacitor system untenable. I will have to look at ways of using the 4 nanoamp "pulse" from each swing of the pendulum.
My Devices use "regular" air. Nothing special.
I have not yet given up, I am still looking at a couple of ideas and will hopefully bring one to fruition.
I have taken 5 of the high efficiency LED's and strung them together. I placed them behind the negative terminal. When I did that, the 4 nano-amp pulse lit up all 5. They lit one after another in a moving pulse. Still quite dimly, but I am going to string more and see if human "persistence of vision" can be utilized to make it appear brighter than it really is. Just an idea, but it seems reasonable. I was thinking of a 5X5 LED grid...something like that.
If I could figure out how to make a diode function as a truly "one way" door, with no leakage, that would work quite well.
As always, thank you all for your ideas. It has been helpful.
Registered Member #3414
Joined: Sun Nov 14 2010, 05:05PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4245
Zamboni wrote ...
.whatever the reason, it makes the capacitor system untenable.
If the capacitor is small enough, current drain will be much less.
3.3nF is obviously far too big.
If you reduce capacitance by a factor of a thousand, say a few picofarads current drain may well be acceptable.
Maybe reducing by a factor of one hundred would be sufficient?...say a few tens of picofarads, or maybe somewhere in between these values?
Adding a 'very small' amount of capacitance, and using your string of high efficiency LED's should give a brighter flash.
I think the issue here is that 3.3nF is far too large for your pile to charge.
I'm actually working on a project that uses tens of picofarads and a spark gap myself, but mine is designed for much higher voltages.
I'm building my own caps, and hope to post some 'very early' test results soon. My initial setup will be very crude, and will still need a lot of development after I start firing the gap, I just want a 'base point' from which I can develop the idea.
If the capacitor is small enough it should work, and it should be brighter than no capacitor at all.
Edit: I've just had another idea. You can do away with the spark gap if you use enough LED's in series. I'm not sure what the exact 'forward voltage drop' of your high efficiency diodes are, but the averave LED is around 3-3.3V. If you string enough of them together in series, say 150, the forward voltage drop of the string will be around 450V (you can adjust this to the exact voltage you require). Every time the capacitor charges to whatever total Vfd you choose to set, the string of diodes will 'fire'. Spark gaps are lossy, you don't actually need one
Maybe someone else can confirm this idea, or can find a flaw in it?
EDIT: LED's can sustain much higher current for a very brief time, generally 100mA for a diode rated for 20mA. If current becomes too high at these voltages you may need to add an inductor, but at the moment I'm assuming that won't be necssary.
EDIT: I can think of a few tricks you could use to use a larger capacitor, which doesn't fully discharge, so, due to the exponential drop in current draw as it charges, current drain on the pile would be less, but it's nearly 3am here now, and I need to give it a bit more thought before posting.
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Light LED with 4 nanoamps
