Captret - Capacitor and Electret

[Groundloop]

@e2matrix,

Yes the circuit is still running. The voltage is at 7,60 Volt now and is still going up.
But the voltage climb speed has slowed down. It takes a very long time before I
see a 0,01 Volt increase. I will let the circuit run for many days to see what happen.

I also has designed a CapTret library entry for my electronic CAD program. I then designed
the attached circuit and PCB. My plan is to series enough capacitors to get a high enough
voltage to run a Joule Thief as a boost charger, or just light up some white LEDs.
I plan to put 100 capacitors is series and then 10 PCBs in parallel, totaling 1000 caps.
My PCB can take 100 pcs. 10mm modified capacitors. I have found that the easiest way
to add a new wire to the capacitor is to first remove the plastic covering, add a wire
to the bare metal, and then use a heat shrink tube plastic over the wire.

I will be a LOT of work to modify 1000 capacitors, but heck, someone have to try this.

Alex.

[Sprocket]

My 2 cents - just had a play with a few caps, yes, I get the 'flash' the led using the capacitor case & the positive terminal, followed by another when the led is powered from the terminals themselves - so a successful replication!!!

Unfortunately, when you monitor the voltage across the cap while simultaneously powering the led from the capacitor case, you can clearly see the voltage drop rapidly - so there is no doubt (in my mind anyway) that the 'effect' is simply a result of leakage.  Also, if you charge the cap to just above the turn-on voltage of the led (say 1.8V) you still get the led to light the 'normal' way (across the capacitor terminals) but nothing from across the capacitor case - not surprising as the case<->positive terminal voltage only goes to about 1V.  The known-about effect of the self-charging caps has always interested me though  Otherwise, moving on...

[Groundloop]

@Sprocket,

Here is a test for you. Short both wires of the capacitor. Measure the voltage
between the two shorted wires and the can. Short out the wires and the can.
Measure the voltage again. Now repeat that as many times as you can.

Groundloop.

[ibpointless2]

Here is my simple home made captret.

What you need:

aluminum foil
pop bottle
salt
water

I have it hooked up to a dead 12 volt battery and the outer case (-) to top positive it is whats inside the battery (5.40 volts) but the outer case to captret connection (o) it is little lower (5.37 volts)

[ibpointless2]

Now we're getting somewhere.

I made a new homemade captret but this time much different. I took another pop bottle and cut the top off. placed aluminum foil around the outside and aluminium foil around the inside, completely around. Then made a small strip of aluminum foil and hung it from the top down to the middle.

To sum it up
The negative (the outside) is the same size as the captret (around the inside), but the positive is smaller then both and its in middle with the captret foil but not touching it.

So what happen?
The battery has 5.39 volts in it, but when you read the negative and the captret(O) it reads 5.41 volts. And of course when you read the - to + of the capacitor it reads 5.39 volts just like whats in the battery.

It seems we can increase the voltage, kind of like a step up transformer.