Hi all, not sure where to put this. but here it goes
I'm building some kind of capacitor , and i resembles for now a bit a leyden jar design , I will fill it with air and later salt water.. and as I have no knowledge of high voltage i did some reading.
I know High voltage can be dangerous, but as i want to fill it with static electricity, how dangerous is that ?
I know first rule: Don't touch it before you use some insulated grounded pole or short it out...
Any other things i need to consider ?
TIA Cherryman
Yes, Leyden jars can be very dangerous. Yes, "static" electricity can charge Leyden jars or other capacitors to very high voltages. Yes, if you aren't careful you can kill yourself (or your cat) with a Leyden jar charged to high voltage. Yes, be very careful and use a carefully made discharge wand (sometimes called a "Jesus Pole") to discharge your Leyden jars before you handle them. Yes, if you have no knowledge of or experience with High Voltage -- do some studying and be _very careful_.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd2xUhf-T5U
Quote from: TinselKoala on May 09, 2016, 03:26:38 PM
Yes, Leyden jars can be very dangerous. Yes, "static" electricity can charge Leyden jars or other capacitors to very high voltages. Yes, if you aren't careful you can kill yourself (or your cat) with a Leyden jar charged to high voltage. Yes, be very careful and use a carefully made discharge wand (sometimes called a "Jesus Pole") to discharge your Leyden jars before you handle them. Yes, if you have no knowledge of or experience with High Voltage -- do some studying and be _very careful_.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd2xUhf-T5U (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd2xUhf-T5U)
Tnx I apreciate the reply! I'm doing my research.
Here is a little video of my testbed in progress.
https://youtu.be/10Jg8u-NgLs (https://youtu.be/10Jg8u-NgLs)
I've been trying for a few days now to use a continues sparking BBQ electric arc lighter to charge up some electrostatic stuff.
What ever i try.. it seems not to work.. anybody any suggestions ? Starting to get frustrated.
I put some wires on it ..and that works.
I can spark with them, but could it be possible there is no Pos and Neg..
I tried charging Leyden Jars, I tried making a electrostatic bell..
I tried a simple electrostatic motor..
but nothing seems to charge ...turn or move.
Anybody know how these lighters work?
Could it be they change polarity so nothing gets charged?
I also have a plasma ball, could i use that power supply out to use for producing some HV charging ?
PS I made a electroscope to test charge. And it works with pvc and cloth. So i can test.. but i guess the lighter circuit is somehow wrong for this ?
@cherryman
It is true, in certain situations, static electricity can be
Dangerous.
Most people are not able to create these situations.
And therefore, it is safe to handle. Might scare you or
make you jump a little. But I would consider it harmless.
When it comes to Leyden jars, the point of danger lies in
A range of potential somewhere between 40k and 200kV
And it's not just the voltage that kills you. It has to do with
The discharge current. Which is a factor of the distance
between the plates of the Leyden jar. The closer the charged
plates are to one another, the more dangerous the discharge.
also there is a factor of the insulation on the jar, and
how the charge leaks from it.
Once you get above a few hundred thousand volts, the
danger scales off due to the surface effect. You body won't take
current from extremely high potentials, it just rides on your skin.
Tesla was approaching megavolt potentials, which creates "safe"
Lightning
There are images of this that show tesla and his visitors being
struck by this high voltage lightning without any ill effects.
Modern experimenters have replicated this on a much smaller scale.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now let's talk about your crystal.
The "generator" inside the clicker is activated by
A spring loaded Hammer.
When you press the button, the spring builds up tension
Once it gets to the release point the spring flies open
Sending the hammer towards the Quartz.
This accounts for 90% of your time you took pushing the
button. No energy is output during this time.
The hammer strikes the crystal for but a couple of microseconds.
One quick pop that causes stress on the crystalline structure.
When that stress relaxes back to the crystals normal rest state
That is when the electricity is converted from physical force.
This conversion takes only nanoseconds. Almost 1000 times faster
Than the hammer that caused the stress.
So your first issue is the short pulse compared to the long time it
takes you to push the button again.
The second issue is these devices are low voltage, high current.
Generally between 500V - 2kV
Basically it takes a lot of clicks to try to do what you are doing
On top of that, you are in a race against leakage.
Maybe attaching several clickers onto a large push button?
@Smokey
Tnx for Replying.
I think you have the wrong lighter in your mind, not sure, mine is electronic. Not piezo.
Here is a little example of the spark frequency I get:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZh6gtL7rTE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZh6gtL7rTE)
( Don't mind the setup or the rotating, thats not from the HV , i gave it a little push )
I have almost continuous sparking, but it looks like i can not charge a body. or something alike with it.
What i want is a power-source to drive some experiments as electrostatic motors.
Preferable from a household hack.
Do you think i could have more succes with a plasma ball driver ?
Excuse my ignorance, but would i be theoretically able to charge for example a Leyden jar with such a lighter ?
My mistake.
You said BBQ, and I assumed it was a standard piezo unit.
I haven't seen anything like what you have outside of fuzzy
Old laboratory videos....
Any clue what is inside? It seems possible that an array of
Capacitors could be used to create an A/C hv pulse.
I did something similar with a Chinese taser
If you had a commutator times to the right frequency
You could maybe rectify it like we do our DC motors.
Speaking of plasma ball circuits
Those are cheap and effective
You can pick up a 6-inch plasma for about
$10 at any random novelty shop
Quote from: sm0ky2 on January 31, 2017, 12:13:30 PM
Speaking of plasma ball circuits
Those are cheap and effective
You can pick up a 6-inch plasma for about
$10 at any random novelty shop
I have a plasma ball : )
So with a plasma ball power source i could be able to achieve something like this ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfj50Jixt0A
Quote from: sm0ky2 on January 31, 2017, 12:11:59 PM
My mistake.
You said BBQ, and I assumed it was a standard piezo unit.
I haven't seen anything like what you have outside of fuzzy
Old laboratory videos....
Any clue what is inside? It seems possible that an array of
Capacitors could be used to create an A/C hv pulse.
I did something similar with a Chinese taser
If you had a commutator times to the right frequency
You could maybe rectify it like we do our DC motors.
Great, that was what i was wondering.. It could be AC so no charge build up...
I guess i'm gonna screw open my plasma ball : )
Here is a picture of inside the lighter:
The blue cap on the end says 6Kv
I can't believe spending days...days... on a AC high Voltage power supply as it seems.
The Plasma ball power supply works!
Finally some movement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cfz0Fck2a8M (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cfz0Fck2a8M)
Tnx Smoky!
Not much movement.. but finally some movement... !! : )
Now i can go back to the important testing.
I love that Lidmotor video
That's the one that had me thinking about
An electrostatic QuMoGen. 😇
Yeah A/C switching circuit - it has its uses
But maybe not what you are going for ATM.
Maybe shelf that as an a/c power source later.
Leyden jars should increase performance of the
Motor
Quote from: sm0ky2 on January 31, 2017, 02:24:19 PM
I love that Lidmotor video
That's the one that had me thinking about
An electrostatic QuMoGen. 😇
Yeah A/C switching circuit - it has its uses
But maybe not what you are going for ATM.
Maybe shelf that as an a/c power source later.
Leyden jars should increase performance of the
Motor
Wel the fun now starts.
The object (Utron) I made as a Leyden jar.
The one above is aluminium on the outside and filled with salt water and the aluminium axle is the inner electrode
I've made a few different models, with all different charastics, now ready for testing.
I have done a lot of research on the principle, and i think there could be some nice effect.
I do however SUCK in electronics ; )
As a bonus.. i give you Lid's high speed version ; )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbOEVYFeGjc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbOEVYFeGjc)
Maybe you see where i'm going !
Smoky.... I hate to be overly critical with someone who is actually experimenting, but I have to jump in here.
You've made several statements during your work with static electricity that are, frankly, wrong.
Such as what you have said here about Leyden jars and high voltage.
I'd hate to see anyone hurt or killed because they think that a Leyden jar charged to hundreds of kV will be "safe".
Skin effect has to do with frequency, not voltage. DC currents at high voltage, backed by even relatively small capacitances,
can be _very dangerous_ indeed. Charge a decent Leyden jar or bank to hundreds of kV and discharge that across your body: you will
probably die. However, I seriously doubt that you have ever encountered voltages in the hundreds of kV range with your setups. But I
have a lot of experience with such voltages (even to the point of nearly killing myself a couple of times.) If you have a system that can
sustain hundreds of kV long enough to charge a Leyden jar to that voltage, you have something that could indeed be _deadly_ with
only a few tens or hundreds of picoFarads of capacitance, easily within reach of a good Leyden jar.
Something like a good, well-tuned Tesla Coil can make hundreds of kV and this can indeed be safe when touched because the
_frequency_ of the AC current is high enough that the current is confined to a thin "skin" and doesn't pass through the body but
rather goes over the outside. But this is an AC effect having to do with high frequency and is very different from how DC current at HV works.
You've talked several times about "frequency" of your Voss machine. This is a _DC_ machine (although it may sometimes reverse
its charge polarity). You must not mistake the frequency (rate) of spark discharges with the frequency of an AC signal or current.
A higher DC current means a greater _rate_ of spark discharge, for a given capacitance and voltage (gap). If you also have substantial
inductance in your setup (em inductance not es) then _during the individual sparks_ you may have some AC ringing, but you
cannot see this without an oscilloscope, and this will not protect you in the event of an accidental discharge through your body.
You are safe at low ES voltages if capacitance is small. But even with "small" capacitance, DC voltages in the hundreds of kV can be
very dangerous.
The "good news" is that it is difficult to make a proper Leyden Jar that will actually hold off hundreds of kV without puncturing or shorting. That's why
I prefer to use strontium or barium titanate doorknob capacitors in series stacks. A stack of ten, 1200 pf 40 kV doorknobs will stand off 400 kV reliably.
But you'd have to be crazy to try to deliberately take a discharge from such a stack through your body. You can easily die from only a few Joules
of energy through the chest.
Carry on, you are doing good work, but... carry on _SAFELY_ and beware of capacitors charged to EHV.
For amusement:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpemKuf6X_c
@TK
I hate to get into semantical discussions with you
Especially since your expertise in this area
far exceeds my own.
I must state now that the Voss machine is indeed
An A/C device.
It may not appear that way because the actual freq.
Of the signal can be exponentially higher than the
Discharge rate of the machine.
I had techs at my house for over a week testing this
stuff trying to figure a way to convert it.
Which we did with, what I would call partial success.
The negative (resinous) spark is 180-degrees out of
phase to the positive ( vitreous) impulse.
These are microwave frequencies, compared to the
100-200Hz discharge of the machine.
When I speak of "frequency" with this machine I am
generally referring to the discharge rate.
But the HV carries its own freq. components
(I use the plural term because there are more than one freq.)
For you to kill someone with your jars is probably an easy task
However, for a beginner such as myself, even the largest potentials
That I can achieve would only kill a small insect.
I have breached 700kV rated insulation with my Voss
And machines not much larger than mine used to run MV X-ray
devices.
One thing I have learned about Leyden jars is that the potential
Is not the same as the capacitance
Potential has a lot to do with the physical size of the plates in the jar
Whereas capacitance is more closely related to the distance between
the plates and how well they are insulated.
My high capacitance Leyden jars take a lot longer to charge
Than my lower capacitance jars, that can reach higher potentials
And do so much more quickly.
The 10-gallon bucket caps, for example, can be deadly with the right
machine. A Voss like mine takes about 30-35 seconds to charge those
up to anything dangerous.
Generally speaking, the average person will make a capacitor out of laminent
or a small glass jar.
Using a wooly-socked human body as a reference point
The average human capacitance is 100-200pf (some as high as 400)
And a good walk across a rug can charge you to 30-50kV
That gives the wool socked human and the silk socked human
A potential of 100kV across two 200-pf capacitors.
I socked myself and others extensively as a child, yet never
managed to kill myself or others.
Estimates put the "death zone" around 1,350 microjoules.
That is a conservative estimate for a 'weak human'.
Most people will be able to take a bigger shock than that.
You can calculate the energy of your Leyden Jar using THIs
Formula:
https://www.princeton.edu/ssp/joseph-henry-project/oscillatory-discharge/leyden-jar/ (https://www.princeton.edu/ssp/joseph-henry-project/oscillatory-discharge/leyden-jar/)
And this here:
http://nuclear.unh.edu/~maurik/Phys408_Spring2003_Holtrop/Lectures/Lecture27/ConceptQ27_sol.pdf (http://nuclear.unh.edu/~maurik/Phys408_Spring2003_Holtrop/Lectures/Lecture27/ConceptQ27_sol.pdf)
Well, I tried, anyway.
Your Voss machine is DC. You have substantial inductance in your wiring. When your capacitance discharges across the spark gap, you will have AC ringing due to the capacitance and inductance making a very high frequency tank circuit. It is definitely possible that this ringing is in the "microwave" frequency range. This does not mean your machine is AC. Your machine can charge a capacitor and keep it charged until breakdown, without using a rectifier diode. This proves that it is producing DC. The "AC" ringing is only produced during the actual spark discharge and is a result of the capacitance of the machine and the inductance of the wiring.
The spacings of the parts in your Voss machine cannot possibly produce 700 kV. If your machine has breached insulation rated that high, it must have found a crack or other defect of lower resistance and poked through there. What insulation are you talking about, exactly? Don't forget that spheres of large size have the highest breakdown voltage and any other geometry (flat plates, points, corners, etc) will break down at lower voltages over a given gap distance. Or looking at it another way, the sphere gap produces the _smallest_ gap for a given high voltage, and other geometries will break down over a much greater distance at a given voltage. And 700kV will breakdown over a distance of 25-30 cm between large spheres, and over a much greater distance between electrodes of other geometries. This means that the oppositely charged areas of _any_ electrostatic or even electrodynamic machine must be _greater_ than that or the voltage will spark across. Obviously your Voss machine doesn't have its parts separated by that much. When I demonstrate a 27 cm spark between large spherical electrodes on one of my Bonetti machines, that is reaching 600 kV for sure -- and all parts of the machine carrying opposite charges are separated by more than that spacing, otherwise the spark would happen where the parts are closest and would happen at lower voltages.
Yes, Voss and other machines can reach higher voltages IF they are properly constructed and isolated for that high voltage. Yours is not. Take a look at some systems operating in the MV range to drive xray machines, you will see that they are large, that they have very smooth and large curvatures, that they are operating in pressurized gas environments for further insulation.
The capacitance of a capacitor depends on the area of the plates, the spacing between the plates, and the permittivity of the material separating the plates. The formula, in case you are interested, is
C = ε(A/d)
where A is the area and d the separation of the plates. There are many internet references available on this topic. The potential (voltage) that a capacitor can withstand, or store, is determined by the breakdown of the dielectric (presuming that leakage from edges, etc, is eliminated by proper design and isolation.) The area of the plates has nothing to do with the potential (voltage) that can be stored on a capacitor. Tiny caps can withstand very high voltage, and huge caps can breakdown at tiny voltages, all depending on the dielectric and the spacing. Do not confuse voltage (aka potential) with charge quantity; the same amount of charge can produce a high voltage if confined to a small space, or a low voltage if distributed in a large space. Voltage is charge pressure, from like charges repelling like, or charge tension, from unlike charges attracting. (same thing, different sides of the same coin.)
http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/capacitor/cap_1.html (http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/capacitor/cap_1.html)
There is no such thing as "resinous" or "vitreous" impulse. These are ancient names for positive and negative electrical charges. In our ordinary environment we only deal with electrons (negative charges) and "lack of electrons" (positive charges, holes). We _never_ see "naked positive charges" unless we are working with protons directly. A "positively charged" thing has fewer than normal electrons, a "negatively charged" thing has excess electrons. A spark consists of a plasma produced by a stream of negative charges -- electrons -- moving from the negatively charged item to the positively charged item, and to a lesser extent, positive ions (air gas molecules stripped of one or more electrons) moving in the other direction. Yes, when you have some inductance along with capacitance, a spark will reverse polarity many times per second as the tank circuit rings down in voltage. This means the polarity of the gap electrodes alternates back and forth, positive and negative, at the ring frequency. Yes, the currents are 180 degrees out of phase then, going back and forth across the gap, possibly at GHz frequencies if capacitance and inductance are small. The energy sloshes back and forth between capacitance (electric field) and inductance (magnetic field) and a little bit dissipates at each cycle until the voltage drops to the point where it can no longer break down the gap. Yes, a spark gap also produces broadband noise in addition to its tank ringdown frequency.
Do what you like, interpret things however you like, but please don't mislead people into thinking that Leyden jars charged to hundreds of kV are going to be "safe".
Some 500+ kV sparks:
Using a small neon (NE-2) bulb to find the polarity of an ES generator:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpoTGdbcUzE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpoTGdbcUzE)
The VDG machine polarity is determined by the materials of the belt and the top and bottom rollers, depending on their positions on the triboelectric scale. The pingpong ball itself changes polarity each time it strikes the box endplates and is repelled by the one it just struck and is attracted to the one it is about to strike. The ball in this case is actually a current-carrier! This is a "model" of some of what happens in an electrostatic spark gap when an actual spark occurs.
Tnx TK for weighing in.
Back to my power supply strubbles...
Still something is off...
I can not get anything to rotate, even not a lightweight cup with some alufoil on it, with almost no friction.
It works when i near it with a PVC pipe , wrubbed with a cloth, it turns easaly.
But with the plasma ball power supply.. Nothing wants to move.
I tried plates, brushes, wirepoints.. al i can think off.
Could the Plasma ball be also AC HV ??????
Here is a picture, someone capable of determine the output is DC or AC ?
(Input is 12V DC )
Dear Cherryman.
Yes it's an AC output in the low kHz range. Try attaching an HV diode from a microwave oven.
If you haven't damaged your glass ball try putting a strip of Aluminium foil on the glass and pick up with the diode from it.
Now, to reiterate TK, this electric stuff is VERY DANGEROUS please be careful.
Kind regards, Graham.
Quote from: Grumage on February 01, 2017, 06:32:28 AM
Dear Cherryman.
Yes it's an AC output in the low kHz range. Try attaching an HV diode from a microwave oven.
If you haven't damaged your glass ball try putting a strip of Aluminium foil on the glass and pick up with the diode from it.
Now, to reiterate TK, this electric stuff is VERY DANGEROUS please be careful.
Kind regards, Graham.
Thank you Grumage,
AC also, hahah.. days of frustration suddenly makes sense.
I was almost gonna make a VDG or something to get a charge and give up on the electronics because i get easy charge results just with some pvc and a cloth.
I have a broken down Microwave, lets see if i can find that Diode.
If I remember correctly its the one straight on the major capacitor? ( Yes, I decharge that first )
You prefer the glass ball and the alufoil in between as an extra safety ?
I did learn a lot along all these attempts and i also thank you for you extra safety warning.
RK
Tesla coils are safe simply because they are RF sparks, not DC or low freq AC. RF at the kHz range travels on the skin and doesn't penetrate the body. I've got a hand held Tesla that gives strong one inch sparks and it tickles, but the one inch induction coil sparked at 50Hz with a cap charged to 500v at the primary nearly killed me. Body tensed up and couldnt move, and jolts kept coming. Both sparks look the same to the naked eye. Don't F@@k with HV DC or low freq HV AC. :o
I could not find that diode : ( .. It must be somewhere in a box when i dismantled the microwave )
The thing i thought would be the simplest about my experiment, starts to become the most difficult ; )
But.. another option maybe.
I picked up this little beauty at the second hand shop:
A air cleaner with a negative ion generator inside.
Are those AC also ? ( before I demolish another thing )
Can I use that?
Semiconductor grade capacitors can store a lot of energy
So I am not going to say that it is not 'possible' to set up
A circuit to an ESG that could be potentially harmful.
That being said, I cannot seem to find a single validated
reference to death by ESD. Every case I have found
involved some other factor- fire or explosions caused by gas ignition
pace makers or other medical electronics failing, etc.
The average home-made Leyden jar holds 1/1000th of
What passes through your body from a Tazer or stun-gun
Both of which are considered "non-lethal".
The average (pair of) Leyden jars holds less than 1/8000th
Of the energy going through a defibrillator (thing that restarts
your heart at the hospital).
It is deadly? After 2,000 years of experimentation, there is
little to no historical record of ESD doing any more than
startling an unsuspecting target.
If anyone has reference to a death caused by electrostatics
It would be interesting to read about.
1MV @ 100pf = 0.1A for 1 millisecond??
(average current throughout the discharge)
It is doubtful that a home experimenter is going to achieve
even something that large.
To put that into perspective, an averaging of lightning strikes
(Which are only sometimes deadly) estimates roughly
100,000 Amps for 10-30 microseconds.
An ESD from a cloud the size of your house represents a clear
and present danger. A small piece of aluminum on your desk...
Not so much.
The word from ESG authorities worldwide, has thus far been the
same comment to me ( although sometimes worded differently)
people that have spent their entire lives he's working with static
electricity have said basically the same thing.
They have all taken and given shocks of ungodly potential
With no long-lasting ill effects. They have never seen nor
heard of an actual death caused directly by ESD.
From my conversations with them, their labs and offices
we're much better equipped to produce and store these
charges than anything I am capable of at home.
I am not trying to undermine anyone's safety here.
You should always use precautions and do not intentionally
Shock yourselves or others with experimental HV ESD's.
But the danger is being grossly over exaggerated here.
I can find lots of references to people drowning in a glass of
water or a bowl of soup. But no death by ESD?
If anyone has a reference to something like this, please
share with the group.
Now - electronic driver circuits that produce HV
Most certainly ARE dangerous!!!
So if you are toying with NST's or plasma circuits
Please be careful.
I have no estimated voltage range of my particular modified
Voss machine. I can punch holes in rated electronics grade
Electrostatic Insulation, I can measure a spark gap over 1ft
Through open air.
However, even with a 100kV electrostatic meter, the needle
goes crazy just walking into a small room that has been
Ionizing for a couple hours.
Impedance of air at its' ground state can be estimated,
But when the same air is partially ionized, the impedance
can change drastically. So for me, the size of the spark gap
Is not an accurate indicator of the true voltage potential.
I've hit myself with 12 Leyden jars, (6 &6 in parallel)
With no harm. These were large size Mason jars
Lined with aluminum inside and out. With and without
Salt water (different salts were experimented with)
My neighbor down the street shocks himself every time
he is here while I have the machine running.
I use him as my "volt meter".
He tells me when the jolts get more intense as I adjust
The machine.
If I thought this machine could be even remotely harmful
I wouldn't allow him to do this.
The 10-gallon bucket Leyden jar that has been going around
the internet is stated to be dangerous. These can reliably
charge upwards to 50kv (some reports are higher).
However, their capacitance is much larger than a small glass
Jar. So there may be some truth to the danger of a jar that size.
This is still significantly less than a Tazer and take some time to
charge up.
Quote from: Cherryman on February 01, 2017, 08:57:06 AM
I could not find that diode : ( .. It must be somewhere in a box when i dismantled the microwave )
The thing i thought would be the simplest about my experiment, starts to become the most difficult ; )
But.. another option maybe.
I picked up this little beauty at the second hand shop:
A air cleaner with a negative ion generator inside.
Are those AC also ? ( before I demolish another thing )
Can I use that?
At the risk of not knowing exactly which circuit they used
I can tell you that (most) ion-air cleaners have a rectification
That makes them DC. One plate is charged, to ionize the air
The other is grounded back through the circuit.
Which one you have (+ or -) depends on who made it.
These were in production long before the science that supports
them was released.
So earlier ( and low budget) models charge +
These are useless as "air cleaners", just a fancy ( sometimes loud)
Decoration.
The ones that clean the air release - ions.
Samsung was at the forefront of this technology and has available
Lots of data about how and why they work.
Either type of ion air cleaner should be able to separate charges
You may have to locate the opposite terminal and separate it from
The circuit so you have a + and a - terminal.
You could however only use half of then potential and spark to earth
ground, without modifications to the air cleaner.
Dear sm0ky2.
Having spent a large part of my working life within the Supply industry, HV distribution, I think that any warnings about High Voltage electricity should be taken seriously. I don't doubt your post above but the simple matter is that AC derived electricity can be lethal.
Let's just " Play safe " !! :)
Kind regards, Graham.
Here's my V d G.
Oh, and these are " cheap as chips " !!
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DC-12V-to-20000V-High-voltage-Electrostatic-Generator-Negative-Ion-Generator-MO-/152382512125?hash=item237ab49bfd:g:PUEAAOSwnHZYbLz~
Quote from: sm0ky2 on February 01, 2017, 09:45:55 AM
At the risk of not knowing exactly which circuit they used
I can tell you that (most) ion-air cleaners have a rectification
That makes them DC. One plate is charged, to ionize the air
The other is grounded back through the circuit.
Which one you have (+ or -) depends on who made it.
These were in production long before the science that supports
them was released.
So earlier ( and low budget) models charge +
These are useless as "air cleaners", just a fancy ( sometimes loud)
Decoration.
The ones that clean the air release - ions.
Samsung was at the forefront of this technology and has available
Lots of data about how and why they work.
Either type of ion air cleaner should be able to separate charges
You may have to locate the opposite terminal and separate it from
The circuit so you have a + and a - terminal.
You could however only use half of then potential and spark to earth
ground, without modifications to the air cleaner.
Tnx.
When i put my electroscope in the airflow they plates are separating when i activate the ionizer,
Do electroscopes display only a positive charge, or also negative ?
Although the folder stated negative ions..
And yes, i try to do some reading up as well, always nice to learn.
Edit:
I see an electroscope does not read out polarity, only charge
If I only had that HV resistor.. I could try TK's polarity methode with the neon
http://www.physicstutorials.org/home/electrostatics/electroscope (http://www.physicstutorials.org/home/electrostatics/electroscope)
@TK
I'm not sure which version of my Voss you are referring to
when you talk about the 'spacing', as I have refurbished
the upper (collector) disk about 30 times with different
size plates, number of plates, and spacing between them.
With larger plates, higher charges are collected by the plates.
(With no Leyden jar) but at a lower rate of collection.
Smaller plates hold smaller charges but they pass the collector
brushes more often so the rate of collection increases accordingly.
I find that the induction process itself becomes more intense with
larger plates.
During no configuration did I find an upper limit to the stored
charge collected by the Leyden jars. The more jars, the more charge,
however, it take a more time to charge up larger capacitors.
Every increase in capacitance results in an increase in potential without
Arc-over.
I did arc once, but upon examination, it was 2 brushes coming into close
proximity to the same plate, not the distance between plates, that caused
the arc over.
With the Whimshurst machine, arc-over is eminent once charge attained
exceeds the impedance between any two plates. This is because of the way
the two different machines induce and collect charges in different manners.
Whimshurst induces and collects in consecutive order. This places opposite
charges within reach of one another across the surface of the disk.
In fact, each consecutive plate holds a slightly different charge then the next
or previous, resulting in a charge gradient around the circle.
This is the cause of the arc-over.
Voss collects, THEN induces, which leaves only a small area of opposing charges
in close contact. If you follow the charges around the Voss, you can see that
the closest point between two opposing charges exists between the collector
And neutral brushes. A distance which is adjustable.
After leaving the neutral brush, the plates are induced like charge to the next
plate, and they travel TO areas of like charge for collection.
The Voss is nothing like the Whimshurst in regards to maximum potential and
plate spacing.
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Charge stored on a metal plate is restricted by the surface area
of the plate.
Take a single charged plate, charge it up as much as it
will hold, then discharge it to a smaller plate.
The smaller plate will have less final Q than the large plate.
When Q is much less than maximum for the area, capacitance
can be estimated by using a known Q, and the distance between points.
As we approach maximum Q for the plate, as occurs in an ESG,
this estimate falls apart.
For this reason I find your estimate (A/d) to not hold accurate, with respect to
a large Leyden jar. This is because the d is much smaller than the assumed
Square root of A
You can fact check me on that, but the capacitance equation
needs to be taken in its' full form, not the estimated shortcut we use
In standard electronics.
Also I noticed in all of your videos that your machines all operate in
the primary mode. Have you tried lowering external capacitance to
bring them into the secondary mode of operation?
What I refer to as "direct output"?
This occurs when external capacitance is lower than the machines'
internal capacitance. It is quite a notable distinction when it occurs.
Not just in frequency but the nature of the discharge.
Color, luminescence, applied force to another Q, etc.
Quote from: Cherryman on February 01, 2017, 10:16:44 AM
Tnx.
When i put my electroscope in the airflow they plates are separating when i activate the ionizer,
Do electroscopes display only a positive charge, or also negative ?
Although the folder stated negative ions..
And yes, i try to do some reading up as well, always nice to learn.
Edit:
I see an electroscope does not read out polarity, only charge
If I only had that HV resistor.. I could try TK's polarity methode with the neon
http://www.physicstutorials.org/home/electrostatics/electroscope (http://www.physicstutorials.org/home/electrostatics/electroscope)
You "can" use an electroscope to determine polarity.
But to do so you need an object of known charge.
Such as a tube t.v. Screen or a balloon on your hair.
1) charge electroscope so the leaves separate
2) bring electroscope terminal near known charged object
3) if the leaves further separate, the charges are the same
if the leaves collapse (then reseparate), they are opposite.
Quote from: sm0ky2 on February 01, 2017, 11:11:53 AM
You "can" use an electroscope to determine polarity.
But to do so you need an object of known charge.
Such as a tube t.v. Screen or a balloon on your hair.
1) charge electroscope so the leaves separate
2) bring electroscope terminal near known charged object
3) if the leaves further separate, the charges are the same
if the leaves collapse (then reseparate), they are opposite.
Great!
The trick was easy... finding out the polarity was a bit trickey, but the
Triboelectric scale made it easier. What i did:
1. Put Spectroscope in airflow > Separating plates
2. Rubbed PVC pipe over my hair > Charging the PVC negatively
3. Approaching Spectroscope with PVC pipe > More separation without collapse.
Conclusion:So i guess its safe to conclude there is an negative ion flow coming out of the device.
Super info Smoky, tnx.
( maybe i should open a different topic with my questions and leave this for a sparky debate about the Leyden Jars )
It works !! Finally !!
Here is the first attempt. Nothing fancy, nothing new...
Just a very very crude test.. But the concept works.
Now I can start playing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdbO6506gBQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdbO6506gBQ)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc63ieqb_Bc
But i'm totally happy after a week of power supply frustations!
my 4 euro air ionizer does the trick!
I will not update here anymore as this topic is in the wrong place and about Leyden Jars.
Thanks to all who ditched in !