Free Energy

Step 9: Trouble shooting

1) My capacitor charged and then discharged.
Something went wrong with your panel so that you capacitor is actually emiting the little energy that it has.

2) My capacitor isn't charging.
Make sure that your ground is a real ground.
Using it outside works better for some reason
use a smaller value capacitor (between 1000uF and 100uF is good)

Comments

[msagent]

It would be better if two layers of aluminum sheets or foils used between a sheet of paper. Connect capacitor between leads of two layers, connect any one or -ve side of capacitor to ground or water tap (metallic) or borewell tube etc

[SIRJAMES09]

if you build a BIG & POWERFUL battery, you can use lightening to charge the battery...just make sure that the battery is in an enclosed room or building....enclosed but vented to release the gas that batteries produce; and enclosed in case the battery explodes...which they sometimes will do for no apparent reason.

[dzeimis]

 Just to be certain: the less the value of capacitor, the higher is the voltage of output?

[geo bruce]

less the value of capacitor = faster charging
fast voltage increasement but less energy storage

more the value of the capacitor = slower charging
slow voltage increasement but more energy storage

[beehard44]

nope. the less the value of the capacitor, the less energy it can get

[Azintel1]

Could you attach this to a battery?

[mfuchs88]

but how do i use it for any purpouse, and what does grounding mean? plz help.

[xerxesx20]

Grounding literally means connecting to an electrical earth or ground if you prefer. This can be achieved by using a household electrical earth, such as a computer case, pin on a socket (be careful) or any plumbing/gas you have, or by driving a large metal stake (spike) into the ground in some soft soil outside.

[octavian234]

So could i just take a copper pipe and hammer it into the ground? How deep would it need to be?

[beehard44]

uuh, use rebar. Engineers usually use steel rebar to make grounding connections, and we have 3 of those in our house. we use them for CATV grounding

[Joeismint2]

hi, is the capacitor just a way to store the energy like a batter, so wuld you be able to have it running directly into say a small bulb?
thanks :Þ

[beehard44]

yuh, but only short bursts...

[guyfrom7up]

yes, the capacitor is used for storing the electricity, but the current is so small that you couldn't run something directly off of the panel.

[mikeb270]

a great experiment, I love it! Just wounder about an electromagnet with it

[pyroninja21]

what does 1000uF stand for im kindov new to this kind of stuff and i ned a little help

[guyfrom7up]

it stands for how much electricity the capacitor can store.  It's similar to how batteries have battery life measured in mah, well with a capacitor it's measured in farads, but farads is a huge unit, so most capacitors are measured in microfarads, or uF, which is one millionth of a farad.

[washttub1960]

Why not scale up further? The metal roof of a house or out building. Would that work? What I'm asking is does thicker metal work?

[guyfrom7up]

only problems with large metal structures is that they tend to be grounded

[boxa888]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-yAkIF8LE8

heres a good link that will explain this to you! you will really like video 8 on this site as well!!

[Kabuto]

Any metal that could be insulated on the back would work. Thicker metal actually may work better; it has a lower resistance.

[Shahee]

What about a vehicle? Like the surface area of a bus roof?

[Kabuto]

If you could ground it, it would work.

[beehard44]

will a metal "brush" made out of layers of aluminum foil touching the ground work as a ground?

[mad magoo]

It might, but I wouldn't put too much faith in it.  Houses usually use an eight-foot-long or so piece of solid copper pipe driven almost all of the way into the ground for a ground.  If you're looking for portability, I would just buy a small copper tube (maybe a foot or two long) and try that.  Although even that might not be the best ground. 

[beehard44]

i think i saw a rebar driven in the ground somewhere in my garden......

[arzthaus]

wouldnt you want a larger capacitor value? more charge can accumulate if there is a larger capacitance. Since the voltage difference is so low between the atmosphere and ground at such low altitudes, a high voltage capacitor is not necessary, just a high capacitance one. does that make sense? im just thinking out loud

[evilscotsman]

Its not the thickness but the surface area thats important, also the material. What Tesla had discovered is that the sun is a massive electrostatic generator, around 200 Billion Volts, raining charged particles on the earth continually. The earth is charged to around 360,000V between the upper ionosphere and the ground, the air in between acting as the "dielectric" or insulator. Aluminium is used as thats what capacitors are made of, since it stores a high charge on its surface compared to other metals. What you are doing is connecting your little capacitor to a much bigger capacitor thats being charged by these particles. The formula for a capacitors value is gained from the square area of the plate, (Pi*Radius)^{2 times two for an equal size pair, however you are using the ground as the Neg plate, and your foil square is the Pos plate...surface area is everything. The maximum charge voltage a capacitor can achieve is just below the dielectric strength of the insulator.}

Make the sheet much larger, or get it higher up for better results, snow is a diffuser of energy as it is both conductive and evenly distributed so lowers the electrostatic potential of the air it falls in by creating an impedance from sky to ground, leaking away the charge so you get less....this system when properly set up would charge indefinately until something gives (or arcs over) in the storage cap.

[steven.noyce]

I was wondering if this device has a name, and also if the capacitor is needed, or if you could theoretically just attach a very small load to the two wires that you have the capacitor connected to (for instance, if you hypothetically had a LED that used pretty much no power whatsoever, would it light up if you replaced the capacitor with it).

[Kabuto]

With a large enough panel, you could light an LED, replacing the capacitor with it. However, a capacitor lets you use a much, much, much smaller panel.

[Jeebiss]

The capacitor acts like a battery of sorts. It stores the energy. An LED on the other hand, would not store the energy. A lone LED would do nothing. You could however, hook the LED to the capacitor that has 3v charge built up, then discharge it in the LED, thus causing very momentary light.

[060692qwerty]

I've done some research, and it is not necessary to insulate the back. Due to this find i might just try it on my shed's roof.

[Oreyeon]

You could make layden jars for the capacitor, couldn't you?

[cmc111992]

would doing this with copper be more efficient nice idea

[Kabuto]

Copper has less resistance, but is many, many times more expensive. It would work, but the gains might not be worth the price.