Re: [TCML] Build a capacitor in 5 minutes or less

[jhowson4@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Auminium foil and a hunk of glass works for me when i do this stuff, i just charge the plates with a small VDG, and they stick together on the glass (attractive force=charged as far as the audience is concerned) 
If you have access to a stand that you can attach sturdy plates with a varying distance, you can do the demo of how the charged cap will suck in dielectrics, as well as how you can store charge in the polarized dielectric, charge it up, very carefully remove the dielectric (bumping it ruins the effect), short the plates, put the dielectric back in, and oh look it still has a charge. 
We have one at college I have played with off hours, works with a 10Kv supply and what looks to be a piece of 1/4" nylon sheet, the plates are two 6" disks mounted on a u shaped gizmo. 

I have also had students do it with aluminium foil and printer paper, put a book on top to hold it all together. use a capacitance meter to observe the change in capacitance as you push down harder (less distance under compression) 

But i presume you are doing HV stuff, so aluminium foil wrapped around some red solo cups and then stacked together with interleaving output tabs is a good way to create an easy cap that can withstand a couple Kv. 
I have also done this on a larger scale with Lowe's and Home depot buckets, but only the white ones. 



Thanks, 
John "Jay" Howson IV 


"Why thank you, I will be happy to take those electrons off your hands." 

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim" <electrical@xxxxxxxxxxxx> 
To: "Tesla Coil Mailing List" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx> 
Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2012 5:32:56 AM 
Subject: [TCML] Build a capacitor in 5 minutes or less 

Hello, 
For display purposes only, what is the easiest capacitor to make? I am 
displaying my classic Tesla Coil this evening and want to demonstrate 
how capacitors work. 
Thank you, 
Jim Branley 

_______________________________________________ 
Tesla mailing list 
Tesla@xxxxxxxxxx 
http://www.pupman.com/mailman/listinfo/tesla 
_______________________________________________
Tesla mailing list
Tesla@xxxxxxxxxx
http://www.pupman.com/mailman/listinfo/tesla