Make A Water Leyden Jar

Here is another type of high voltage capacitors - a Salt Water Leyden Jar!

Don't know what a leyden jar is? No worries! Read here on Wikipedia!

The water leyden jar is easier to make than a normal leyden jar because putting foil tape perfectly on the inside of the container can be very difficult. If the foil tape job is messy, it can cause a lot of corona discharge, therefor draining its charge very quickly. So instead of having a hard time of perfectly putting foil tape on the inside of the container, just simply pour salted water in!

Disclaimer:
The leyden jar is a high voltage capacitor, high voltage capacitors are one of the most dangerous things you could ever use in electronics. A large charged leyden jar is potentially lethal if you touch its live terminals, and a small charged leyden jar can cause injury and it still be lethal in some ways.
So, I am not responsible what ever you do with this information and leyden jars.

Step 1: Get the things!!

Okay, what you will need is...

• Plastic or glass container
• Water
• Salt
• Stainless steel nail
• Aluminum foil (or even better, use AL foil tape if you have any!)
• Tape (you won't need it if you are going to use foil tape)

Comments

[wolf996]

It's Actually The Amperes That Kill Not Volts I Have Taken A Nasty Shock By A Million Volt Stun Gun

[knexpert1700]

Even though this is basicly a capacitor,you can buy a disposable camera (or get a free used on from where ever film is developed) and look up on instructables ''how to make a mini tazer'' and you will find a one where the tazer is like 1 square centimeter in size.This is about 400-500 volts and is only powered bye1 or 2 AA batteries and takes up to an hour but usually takes 20-25 minutes.
Have fun and be safe!(or not! :-))

[knexpert1700]

What I said before when I said ''it takes up to an hour or 20-25'', I meant to make,not to charge!10 minutes if expert,25 minutes if s to intermediat,30 minutes if beginner,45 minutes-1 hour if no all. experiance at

[Homepwner]

I tried this with foil tape both on the inside and outside of the jar. It didn't work . Most likely because the adhesive acts as an insulator so the joints do not conduct. I wouldn't recommend using foil tape. I figured this would be a problem before the build but I thought I'd try anyway.

[mdwfg]

Dear plasmana i like your works but i wanted to tell you this:
energy can be created or destroyed if a positive and negative charge is created at same exact time or if a positive and negative charge is destroyed at the same exact time respectively.

[Higgs Boson]

well I certainly hope this isn't true! If it was then our ideas of how the world work are completely wrong! Almost all theories of physics are based on thermodynamics.

[MadScientist101]

I 'm not dissing your ible but i found that a tin foil lining gave me a 10x improvement in capacitence

[cyberkeeper1]

thats only because there is not a layer of glue interfering with the conduit.

[greymatter21]

nice  job!!!!!!!!!
1 question:what exactly would this be used for wen fully charged?

[franzwa]

tesla coil or some thing

[freeza36]

or a trick taser ("touch this wire while holding the nail. it doesnt hurt, i swear")

[freeza36]

how do i charge this?

[spiderfurby]

Hi - I have a question - the nail. How far does the nail have to go into the water. Mine goes into the salt water about 2 inches. Is that enough or does it have to go all the way to the bottom of the jar.

I am using a copper nail

[fully-automatic]

I made one of these and tried to charge it with a small 50kv tesla coil, and it didn't work

[sniperHunted]

was the nail galvanized?

[sniperHunted]

just saying, HCl isnt that dangerous. pretty much all pills and medicine have HCl.

[tgupta]

hello i am having a problem with charging the outer foil of the jar how to do so using a simple electrostatic example and yes
can i use the ocmb and a woolen cloth for charging teh outer layer of aluminum foil

[baker amin]

Hi. thanks for this instructable. the only thing I need to know is how you connected the flyback transformer. can you help me please?

[CyclonicNinja]

Imagine using a glass fish tank....

[aweis]

would i be able to charge this with a 70v alternating current generator? if so how much electricity eould it store per unit of volume of the container? i intend to make a tesla coil, a small one with the generator previously mentioned, so so please answer my question. would thhere be any problems with the alternationg current, sonce this is what tesla coils run on.

tesla is awesome, now if only i could find those desighns for the death ray.

[knexgunrifleguy]

could this be used for coilgun because this would make a kick as2 coilgun or railgun!

[Mudbud]

a very inefficient one... coilguns like uF mostly, so the higher capacitance the better :)

[knexgunrifleguy]

Ok cool so how could I Get higher capacitance? Or is it just a case of bigger jar. :-)

[takide]

you know that if you just connect a bunch of capacitors in a parallel you will get a higher capacitance. But, yes the lager the surface area of the jar thats covered in foil, the higher the capacitance.

[Mudbud]

I actually made a capacitor out of a film canister and got 780uF out of it, I was SOOOOO surprised! I think its the amount of salt you put into the canister. I got really hot water and stirred in salt until It stopped dissolving.... Hope you have fun!

[Mudbud]

For som reason mine don't work :/

[denpag]

I have read a lot of the comments here, but not all of them. I agree with the comments made by Thenwcp and a few others. There are a lot of people here asking questions that really have no idea what they are doing. I don't mean to belittle anyone, but a lot of people here really need to read up a little on electricity before playing with this stuff. I agree that high voltage is a lot of fun, but you need to know what you are doing. A couple of comments. As far as charging this with a TV screen, only the older picture tube type TV's will work. They use on average 25Kv. The new flat screens won't work, so don't think that the jar isn't working. Any DC voltage source will work to charge these, wheather it is a 1.5v battery or a 100Kv ignition coil. The jar will only store the voltage that is applied to it. It will not increase the voltage. However, it will increase the amperage potential at discharge. So again, don't think that it is not working if you don't get an arc. The arc will be more dependant on the amount of voltage that is applied to it. I have built large Tesla coils, Van de'Graff generators, and other high voltage devices. Keep in mind, that with sufficiently high voltage, a shock is possible by just touching the terminal at the top of the jar and not touching the side. I have had several close calls playing with high voltage and some of them haven't been pleasant. Remember that the amperage is what is going to kill you. The voltage will carry the amperage, so the higher the voltage, the easier it will be to get that harmful shock. USE CAUTION and the one hand technique. One hand in your back pocket and the other to discharge the device.

[Crtek]

does it make any difference if you put salted water inside or foil? which one is better?
should the wire inside be touching the water or not?
thanks

[jellynation]

can you charge it with a battery? mine seem to not work. any advice? am i suppose to wrap the bottom? i did but i suspect current leaking out from there.

[shadow4742]

First off, thank you for posting this totorial, ive made 3 leyden jars so far and i have fun with them. They're cool. But onto the question, over time (about a week) i've notest a build up of a brown, murky substance in the water, it seems to be hindering the preformance of the jars when the buildup gets to high. Its getting tiring taking off all the electrical tape holding them together to change out the water so i was wondering why they were doing this and if there is a fix? sorry for misspellings -Ryan S.

[blackoutneji]

add white vinegar to the water

[Tobor 2.0]

MINE DIDN'T WORK! any suggestions?

[Tobor 2.0]

do you put foil in the bottle

[ssusmanw]

What does this piece of wire connect to?

[teabaron]

hi nice instructable just a question but when charging from a tv to where would you place the ground and which tv's will or wont work,thanks.

[impedance214]

do a 9v battery will work?

[G.J. Dyason]

if you scale this down alot a 9V batery should work but the charge you'll be able to store will be REALLY tiny!

[Plasmana]

No

[Pie Ninja]

Proabably not, that's a very low voltage.

[lightning r fun]

I have 8 of these connected in parallel using quart size mayo jars, and a small motorized wimshurst machine, the sparks are only around an inch long, but I touched them with my finger and thumb, and my finger went numb for about 4-5 seconds.

BE CAREFUL!

IT HURTS!

BAD!