Re: Water Pig

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Harvey Norris by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <harvich-at-yahoo-dot-com>


--- Tesla list <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com> wrote:

 > >At 19:07 10/05/03 -0600, you wrote:
 > >>Original poster: "Harvey Norris by way of Terry
 > Fritz
 > >><teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <harvich-at-yahoo-dot-com>
 > >>
 > >>
 > >>I use a wallmart poly water pitchure surrounded by
 > >>aluminum foil, and a center 2.5 inch copper pipe
 > as
 > >>the inner axial capacity, for a practical water
 > >>capacitor. The poly barrier prevents all these
 > >>objections about the water being conductive stuff.
 > >
 > >You'll probably find that the system is behaving
 > just like a saltwater
 > >bottle cap. I.e. the water and copper pipe work
 > together as the inner
 > >electrode, the poly container is the dielectric,
 > and the foil is the outer
 > >electrode. I doubt the water is doing anything
 > dielectric at all. Of
 > >course, you could prove me wrong, if you added salt
 > and the capacitance
 > >increased drastically ;)
 > >
 > >Steve C.
 >
I once did the same thing with a square tupperware
container, where both outside electrodes were
insulated by the poly containing water on the inside
surface. The frozen container registered 40% higher
capacitance. As for the central pipe in the insulated
poly containing water, 1.7 nf sounds a bit high if
just the poly were continuing the capacitance. A neon
inserted into the midpoint of the electrodes edges of
the axial water caps will glow underwater. Sometimes
neons will not do this at high voltage input, they
will only discharge from the water surface outwards as
a kind of skin surface effect. This tells me the
electric field is being distributed through the water
volume.  Additionally at higher voltages, in the
10,000 volt range, the water surface becomes visibly
distorted, showing a "concave down" surface tension
difference, where the water sort of "puckers up" near
the electrode edges. Your suggestion that the electric
field is primarily contained in the poly has me
intrigued however. I will try changing the size of my
center electrode to see if changes in capacity are
noted. This would be a tell tale sign that the water
is involved in determining the capacity.

HDN


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