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DIY Capacitor
by _Sean_ on February 23, 2008

Table of Contents
intro: DIY Capacitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

step 1: Getting the materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

step 2: Tin foil time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

step 3: Almost done! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

step 4: That wasnt so hard was it? :) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Related Instructables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Capacitor/

intro: DIY Capacitor

In this Instructable I will be making one of the easiest high voltage capacitors that I know of.....
WARNING High voltage electricity can cause death and serious injury.I do not recommend that anyone work with high voltage power sources unless they know how to
do it safely.

step 1: Getting the materials

You will need:
1.A long screw
2.Some tin foil
3.A 2L bottle
4.some salt and hot water
5.Electrical tape
The first thing you do is get the cap and put a big screw in it.

http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Capacitor/

step 2: Tin foil time

Now take 15inches of tin foil and fold it in half :)

step 3: Almost done!

Now tightly wrap the foil around the bottle and tape it in place.It is very important that it has almost no air bubbles between the plastic bottle and the foil.....

http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Capacitor/

step 4: That wasnt so hard was it? :)

Ok ... Now if you want you can tape a wire to the foil and then wrap the whole bottle in electrical tape (thats what I did)
Fill the bottle with water and over saturate it with salt,baking soda
(Right now I'm trying water and vinegar 50/50 mix)
DONE!
These capacitors work great in small Tesla coils and they make a very loud noise
Have fun and be safe

Related Instructables
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http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Capacitor/

Comments
50 comments Add Comment

view all 246 comments

clemsonguy1125 says:

Jan 25, 2009. 10:21 AM REPLY

do u need to charge it up

mettaurlover says:

Feb 10, 2009. 4:06 PM REPLY

DUH. did you seriously think that it magically charged itself up?

bounty1012 says:

Feb 11, 2009. 1:21 PM REPLY

rofl

clemsonguy1125 says:

Feb 11, 2009. 12:40 PM REPLY

it didnt say anything about charging it

mettaurlover says:

Feb 15, 2009. 12:58 PM REPLY

well, any electrical component NEEDS to be charged in order to be DIScharged.

Goodhart says:

Feb 1, 2009. 3:33 AM REPLY

Hasn't he answered any of your questions here? :-(

joinaqd says:

Jan 24, 2009. 10:01 AM REPLY

whats the capacitance o the capacitor?

Jordo says:

Feb 25, 2008. 7:27 AM REPLY

could you have two 2 Liters filled with water,salt, baking soda,etc. charge them at the same time, then discharge them for a bigger arc?

jakesllama says:

Jan 22, 2009. 2:34 PM REPLY

whats the point?

why dont you just plug it directly instead of it going through a capaciter?

Jaycub says:

Oct 24, 2008. 5:17 PM REPLY

Yeah, and you could use that arc in an ELECTROTHERMAL GUN!!!!!!!!

rocketman221 says:

Oct 4, 2008. 4:40 PM REPLY

yes you can but the more of these you connect togather the more dangerous it gets. you will also need a decent hv source to charge them

geeklord says:

Oct 7, 2008. 5:24 PM REPLY

called a capacitor bank.......right?

Righteous_Fury says:

Oct 13, 2008. 7:02 PM REPLY

yes

froggyman says:

Nov 11, 2008. 4:35 PM REPLY

could you use more foil for a bigger charge?

Do you have ANY stats on this like volts, capetence(uF's)?
,
,I am not a kreeper, I am just curious

http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Capacitor/

triggernum5 says:

Dec 21, 2008. 9:19 PM REPLY

Froggy, I posted this way back..

Basically yea, modern caps are packed with immense amoints of surface area.. They also use very thin, great dielectric separators with a dielectric
constant way higher than PET plastic, glass etc..
And size is your issue.. that (8.5*10e-12) factor essentially divides the value you get by roughly 100000000000.. The dielectric constant of PET plastic is
roughly 3.0, the thickness is roughly a quarter millimeter (100th of an inch).. So that eqn can be written (using metric MKS units) like..
C = (3.0*(8.85*10e-12)*Foil_area)/(0.0025)
C = (1.06*10e-8)*Foil_Area
C = Foil_Area_in_square_meters / 106000000 or
C = Foil_Area_in_square_feet / 1060000000 since there is almost exactly 10 suare feet in a square meter..
A 2L bottle's label has roughly half a square foot.. You'd need 1060000000 square feet of foil to get 1Farad using PET of that thickness as the separator..
Modern caps typically use film deposits to separate, so the thickness is microns, and the dielectric strength is WAAY higher too..

ReCreate says:

Dec 12, 2008. 7:58 PM REPLY

how does that make electricity?

duckythescientist says:

Dec 17, 2008. 10:52 AM REPLY

It doesn't. It only stores electricity.

ReCreate says:

Dec 17, 2008. 12:51 PM REPLY

oh so if you touch it you dont die?

Also i thought you said" Its only in stores..."Ha silly me!

duckythescientist says:

Dec 19, 2008. 7:18 PM REPLY

Most likely won't die. It can store (be only in stores haha) enough that if you are really unlucky it could kill you but I feel safe.

ReCreate says:

Dec 19, 2008. 10:31 PM REPLY

im not counting on my luck

duckythescientist says:

Dec 20, 2008. 7:43 PM REPLY

I'm usually very lucky so I do. But hey, I'm not you.
(sorry that that rhymed)

triggernum5 says:

Dec 21, 2008. 9:14 PM REPLY

If you charge it with DC, it will attain at maximum the voltage of the source.. Charged with more than 50 volts its potentially dangerous,
but its capable of storing very high voltage electricity, so if it was charged with something like a Van deGraff generator, an accident
would likely kill you..

unaffiliatedperson says:

Dec 16, 2008. 4:16 PM REPLY

does the salt water solution have to be hot?

duckythescientist says:

Dec 17, 2008. 10:53 AM REPLY

No, The salt is only there to make the water more conductive. Its not a battery.

duckythescientist says:

Dec 17, 2008. 10:55 AM REPLY

Pardon me... "Its" should be "It's"

Zettu says:

May 22, 2008. 8:25 PM REPLY

is Tin foil and Aluminum foil the same thing with different term or does it define the metal type of the foil?

froggyman says:
you can't buy tin foil at any store, so he is probalt referring to aluminum foil
btw , do you know how much voltage this stores and uF's

http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Capacitor/

Nov 10, 2008. 8:17 AM REPLY

jakesllama says:

Nov 7, 2008. 1:52 AM REPLY

i see thanks
i have recently taken apart a capaciter and found soggy tissue sandwhiched between two metals and rolled up, so the soggy paper stores the electric?
ps wouldnt it be cheaper to make our own rechargeable battery's?

jakesllama says:

Nov 5, 2008. 3:47 PM REPLY

any other ideas for an acid liquid?

my mom wont let me have any salt,baking powder or viniger or at lest not enough any way...

AdobeWanKenobi says:

Nov 6, 2008. 10:39 PM REPLY

It's not an acidic liquid... that would be required for this to be a battery, and GENERATE electricity. This is a capacitor, and is used to STORE electricity.
The salt water is an electrolyte... basically the salt makes the water an efficient conductor of electricity.
The DIELECTRIC material in this setup is the thin plastic wall of the bottle between the two conductors (the vertical cylinder in this case).
Interesting info: Water has a dielectric constant and can be used as the dielectric in a capacitor, but it must be pure, distilled water. Any impurities in the
water (in this case salt) would 'short out' the water capacitor and it would lose its ability to store electricity.

berkin says:

Nov 6, 2008. 9:45 AM REPLY

Draino

jakesllama says:

Nov 5, 2008. 3:42 PM REPLY

you know what im thinking?

worlds strongest electromagnet ever!
thanks for the compaciter i will try to make it!!

hurtzmyhead says:

Nov 6, 2008. 10:00 AM REPLY

worlds strongest? your going to need a lot of 2lt bottles!!!!!!

junits15 says:

Sep 15, 2008. 1:17 PM REPLY

how do i chage this cap like what would i use to charge it?

Wyle_E says:

Oct 7, 2008. 10:18 PM REPLY

Any of the old static electricity methods will work. One of the simplest is stroking a piece of PVC pipe through a handful of silk. With the outside of the
capacitor grounded, touch the charged pipe to the screw to transfer some charge to the capacitor.

junits15 says:

Oct 8, 2008. 1:16 PM REPLY

ok thx for cleareing that up

TheMadScientist says:

Jun 26, 2008. 4:44 PM REPLY

try this. take a one liter bottle, fill it with electrolyte. immerse in another jar of electrolyte. you'll increase your capacitance about fourfold because the liquid
gets much closer to the dielectric than the aluminum foil ever could stay.

craz meanman says:

Aug 26, 2008. 8:20 PM REPLY

huh? take a small bottle which would act as the inside of the 2l in this project, put it in a big bottle, which would act like the aluminum foil in this project?

davecollinsnz says:

Sep 8, 2008. 10:55 PM REPLY

You have a jar filled with an electrolyte (could be water and baking soda, acts as the aluminium foil) and a bottle with electrolyte and with a screw in
the top and you put that bottle into the first jar.

Wyle_E says:

Oct 7, 2008. 10:27 PM REPLY

If you use a liquid electrolyte for the capacitor "plates", you can use a plastic bag for the dielectric. Make a sack from plastic wrap, fill it with an
electrolyte, and suspend it in a tank of electrolyte. With liquid on both sides of the bag, it can be very thin, which increases the capacitance per
unit area. I don't know the puncture voltage of plastic food wrap, but it's a cheap experiment.

http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Capacitor/

craz meanman says:

Sep 9, 2008. 7:07 PM REPLY

nice.

HDM528 says:

Sep 20, 2008. 3:11 PM REPLY

how dose it even work ???????????

Sam the Wizer says:

Oct 7, 2008. 8:51 PM REPLY

The current tries to complete a circuit between the salt water and the aluminum foil but can't because of the insulating plastic in between.
What kind of capacitance are you getting on this? Have you achieved a point where it arcs through the bottle?

killajones says:

Mar 22, 2008. 12:26 AM REPLY

Does the screw have to touch the water?

wiiman8 says:

Mar 22, 2008. 6:48 AM REPLY

Yes the screw should be in the water. Just a little tip I discovered, mix, like he said in the Instructable, 50% water and 50% vinegar and a lot of salt. This
seems to help the discharge along with holding the store.

rocketman221 says:

Oct 4, 2008. 4:49 PM REPLY

attach a bare wire to the screw that goes to the bottom of the bottle for more power

wiiman8 says:

Oct 5, 2008. 9:17 PM REPLY

yes, i did this too, and it does help alot to collect the charge.

wiiman8 says:

Mar 23, 2008. 8:11 PM REPLY

ya no problem

killajones says:

Mar 23, 2008. 8:04 PM REPLY

Thank you.

lobo_pal says:
Nice job with the size reference photo.

view all 246 comments

http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Capacitor/

Sep 17, 2008. 4:29 PM REPLY