Blowing up stuff with capacitor bank!

Don't try this at home.
I dug up some capacitors in the basement and decided to hook all of them up in parallel and see what happens when I short them out through different objects.
Stupid you might say, and it is. I'll probibly die of eletricution someday if not today....

Step 1 What happens when you hook it up to 0.7 pencil?

What happens when you hook it up to 0.7 pencil?

I saw in Popular Science that if you run low voltage and high current through carbon graphite rods, you will create a very intense light, that could possibly blind you if your not wearing welding goggles.

I tried it out with 0.7 pencil led and it was SUPER COOL~.
First the by-products in the led burst on fire, and then the whole piece was glowing intense red, and it seemed to sharpend the end of the led. Later I can product insanely intense light that is brighter than a camera flash with the sharpened end!

Please post more stupid or crazy ideas I should try.

Comments

[eldar7]

 WOW nice one!!!
what whode happen if i user 2.5v 120F caps??(yes 120F caps!!!)
is it will be strong like this to?

[grenadier]

No, supercaps have a very high ESR.

[uberdum05]

Ive seen capacitors rated at 2.5vdc and 3000F!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

[mattccc]

try makeing a coil gun with these caps

[dla888]

I think that would be a coil gun that falls into the artillery class of coil guns.

[tinstructable]

No. The one I'm building would. I'm using a 13,900 Joule Bank. 400v. I'm already scared.

[Terivia]

THAT IS AWESOME!
*runs off to connect the led to a 9v with a switch, and package it all up like a gun*

[agent harmsy]

My GOD!

And I thought 5 photoflash capacitors was dangerous/fun enough! Where did you even GET caps that big from?!?!?

[uberdum05]

You can find them at a place online called http://www.wima.com

[MistaStokes]

what household electronics contain capacitors besides cameras (i used them all)? Also what has a charging circuit in it, i lost my old one

[uberdum05]

TV's, Computers, hi-fi's, laptops, laptop chargers, telephones, xbox's, 5.1 systems, even remote controls! and many other things... :)

[beehard44]

make your own leyden jar, and use a TV as a charging circuit...
just put aluminum foil and the ground is, well, ground

[milsorgen]

old video cards are a good place to look

[danlab]

almost every electronic device will contain capacitors of various types and sizes. Devices that run off of wall outlets will usually have one or two decent sized caps and a bunch of small ones.

[sharlston]

just go to a develompent shop and ask for used disposable cameras

[toogers]

get a broken dvd/cd player for a tv. it's a goldmine of small caps, and a few big ones.

[SteveUK]

When I was a kid, I used to just connect up a 9v battery to a high farad capacitor. Then I would use wires coming from the capacitor to makes sparks on tin foil. You can cut through the foil and it's a bit like a mini welding kit.

[uberdum05]

Thats what I did once, I paralleled two 6800uF audio capacitors,which cost nothing, then charged them to 12VDC. They charged pretty quickly and then I discharged them through a metal screwdriver. Big spark, temporerily magnetized screwdriver.

[beehard44]

OMG WTF?
well, i remebered they pass high or low voltage but high amperage thru metals to make a magnet

[uberdum05]

I think tchnically, it really weakly welded the screwdriver to the capacitors

[beehard44]

then the metal heated a bit at the tip i guess...

[uberdum05]

Yeah its with the high currents, it worked a bit like arc welding where they use low voltage and high current to melt metal and bond it together :)

[Anson16]

Artists use this type of system to run high currents through very thin wire over tile or other material. When the wire explodes it leaves a copper pattern on the tile. Very dangerous with out the necessary safety measures.

[Bogomir67]

We used to charge the caps and then throw them at somebody (from the rear, when he was not looking, anyway), and yell "CATCH". Out of reflex - everybody will, getting a ZAP... ... yeah, yeah, I got zapped myself a number of times that way...

[Madrias357]

I've done that. Too much fun to load up a cap with, say, 30 volts, then yell, "Think fast!" and toss it to someone. For more fun, bend the leads backwards and wear latex gloves, so that the outer edge of the cap has the leads running down it. The gloves keep you from getting zapped.

[muttyfutty]

Woh, My dad (who worked for RS and in the gulf war ) Told me the exact same thing lol, must be quite common!

[Quantinuim]

I just puled apart a big plasma tv the capacitors are HUGE.....

[El Chucko Norris]

run the current through a melon :)

[gammaraptor]

xD someone made a vid about that lol.
it literally fragmented.

[slimguy379]

hey im just curious where did you get these capacitors? are these similar to the ones found in your car systems? im just curious if theses could be used and if they would be cheaper than your "car system" labeled caps. just curious how much these go for?

[milsorgen]

yes they are similar, and all things being equal (specs and manufacturing quality) i could easily see it being cheaper. for finding specs, if a capacitor is large enough it will have all the info you need stamped on it, smaller ones start to use coding somewhat similar to resister values. just google it 

[ARJOON]

that would be a winner in making a extremely powerful coil gun 

[octavian234]

how would use charge these? A battery?

[The 4th Doctor]

bring these things up to full power, you've got 500 joules there (equivalent to  a hearty defibrillator)
 

[sventeeuwen]

extreme lol you get the led (broken) out

[william.b]

that is so cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Buster108]

i made a capacitor bank out of disposable camera capacitors and i hooked it up to little metal rod and some how idk how,but the little rod shot at my palm almost going to through the other side.... i have no idea how this happened but i wasnt too happy about my ER bill... just a little warning..

[MadBricoleur]

o o o o o o h h hh h that sounded like it hurt. real bad...?

[Buster108]

yea it did -.- but once the E.R gave me morphine i didnt feel a thing.. or at least until the bill XD

[bylerfamily]

That is called the railgun effect.