Modified Electrophorus (precharged variable capacitor)

[Kator01]

conradelektro,
can you read german ? 3M produces Elektret-Filter-Material. Could this help to improve the effect ?

http://solutions.3mdeutschland.de/wps/portal/3M/de_DE/3M_Purification/FiltrationSolutions/SolutionsFor/AirFiltration/
http://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/843394O/datasheets-purification-luftfiltration.pdf
Regards
Kator01

[sm0ky2]

@ Conrad

maybe you could connect your crank to a small Sterling Engine.
then power the electrophorus with a tealight candle

[conradelektro]

conradelektro,
can you read german ? 3M produces Elektret-Filter-Material. Could this help to improve the effect ?
http://solutions.3mdeutschland.de/wps/portal/3M/de_DE/3M_Purification/FiltrationSolutions/SolutionsFor/AirFiltration/
http://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/843394O/datasheets-purification-luftfiltration.pdf
Regards
Kator01

I looked at the specifications (Datenblatt) of this filter and found the following:

"Die Partikelabscheideleistung von elektrostatisch geladenen Filtern geht während
der Verwendung zurück."

This tells me, that the charge in the filter gets lost over time. They do not say after how many days or weeks. But this happens in all electrets. Electrets hold a "quasi-permanent electric charge", meaning that the charge disappears after a while and it is difficult to determine how long it holds.

If it is not too expensive I will try to get such a filter, thank you for the hint.

I think that it is important to have some means to re-charge the cake of an electrophorus e.g. by occasionally rubbing it with fur or wool. I plan to do a recharge-experiment with a 30 KV High Voltage power supply. I will try to charge up the acrylic plate (the cake of my latest electrophorus) by help of the 30 KV HV power supply. May be by connecting the ground plate and the top plate (which is resting on the cake) to the HV power supply and letting it sit for some minutes. Or I connect the ground plate and a metallic brush to the HV power supply and and brush the surface of the acrylic plate for a minute.

I read that electret microphones lost the charge pretty soon (after a few months). Some think that the charge in the electret can be preserved for years by enclosing it in metal. I connected the top plate and the ground plate of my latest electrophorus over night or over a weekend and then had the impression that the charge was better preserved. But this simple tests are not conclusive because sometimes the charge held for days without that connection.

I sometimes lose the charge on the acrylic plate suddenly and I am not sure why. It happens when I change the circuit, but not always. If I leave a certain circuit in place and only generate electricity for some minutes every now and then (by moving the top plate up and down, and then stopping for hours or days before resuming) I think I never lost the charge.

I am of course looking for a better cake material than acrylic, but acrylic is easy to find and easy to work with.

After all, this is a hobby, not a well funded development project in order to flood the market with millions of electrophorus based generators.

Greetings, Conrad

[conradelektro]

@ Conrad

maybe you could connect your crank to a small Sterling Engine.
then power the electrophorus with a tealight candle

I am thinking about slave labour. So, be careful, if you show up near my house you might be put to work. (This is sarcasms, not a real intention. I write this caveat because very often people, like the owner of this forum, do not get it when I make a joke.)

The crank mechanism (which will be driven eventually with an electric motor) has the purpose to enable oscilloscope measurements. For proper measurements one needs a uniform up and down movement of the top plate, not necessarily fast, but as regular as possible, with an almost constant and more or less repeatable frequency.

I see the electrophorus and the crank mechanism as a study object, a means to explore this principle, not as a useful electricity generator. But may be the explored principles can one day be used to build a pretty good generator. But for sure I am not planning to turn this into a business, it is a hobby.

(But secretly I want to become stinking rich and I intend to save the world. Again, do not believe that.)

Greetings, Conrad

[conradelektro]

There is hardly anything new under the sun:

http://cap.ee.imperial.ac.uk/~pdm97/powermems/2011/Poster/P-26.pdf

http://cap.ee.ic.ac.uk/~pdm97/powermems/2004/pdfs/187_Arakawa.pdf

Vibrational Power Generator based on the elctrophorus principle (pre-charged variable capacitor), an electret foil is used as "cake".

Greetings, Conrad