Cross Field Capacitor

[Armagdn03]

That's what I also came to realize about the C stack and why I gave up using if for such use in capacitive energy devices.

That's an interesting theory about your Cross Field Capacitor and I will definitely check it out now.

Shouldn't be hard to build a useful one. If it can really pump charges, it would be interesting to see what type of frequencies the capacitance can be varied and what ration of capacitive change it can achieve.

If this really works, it would be VERY useful and more practical than the plasma variable cap as far as ease of implementation goes.

What did you use to increase the conductivity of your water? What type of water did you use?

Tap water and table salt!

there are other patents out there which talk about using a change in the phase state of a material to affect a change in capacitance.

Dr. Stiffler mentioned the work of a man named Louis R. O'Hare

I really suggest you check out his patents, type his name into google patents.

Solar electric generation using ... - Google Patents

[SilverToGold]

I don't think just placing it in a plexiglass enclosure would help much in reducing leakage. The ions will leak off from sharp points into the gas inside the plexiglass enclosure. The system must be placed in a material that will encase it totally. Should also be done under a vacuum to make sure there are no bubbles.

Here's my suggestion to modify your design for the cross field cap to make it simpler for testing.

* Take a PVC pipe.
* Place a seal on one end with an electrode sticking in the cavity of the tube.
* Wrap 2 foils on the outside of the PVC just like with the florescent bulbs variable caps, these are the two plates of your variable cap.
* Place the PVC tube inside another larger diameter PVC tube and fill the gap between PVC tubes with an RTV (Room Temp Vulcanizing) Silicone rubber. This stuff flows almost like water. Place it in a vacuum after doing this before it hardens.
* Fill with your electrolyte.
* Hang an electrode into the other open end of the PVC tube.

PVC has a dielectric strength of about 500 V/mil. 0.15 inch thick tube can handle about 80 kV. Si has an even higher dielectric strength I believe.

And it all being tubes, it's very round and good for holding voltages.

Another great thing about this design is that the capacitance of the two foils is very small when just placed side by side. If the electrolyte works, it should greatly change the capacitance when conducting a current. Remember that the greater the capacitance ratio, the better the design.

like you guys said earlier, the high voltage makes these systems hard, because they need good insulation. I am not equipped to make much at the current moment and so am having trouble fabricating even this simple cell. With lots of leakage, measurements become more difficult.

If I had my way, I would probably try and find some material which had a good balance between high dielectric constant and high dielectric breakdown. This could be coated with foil, or conductive paint. A blank microwave PCB board would be great, many are made with kevlar, but this may be a hard item to find.

Then just build a Plexi glass enclosure to house these plates, it would be well insulated by design.

This could also be built into a cell, where many plates discharge through a common water channel. lots of ideas, with no resources at the moment

[SilverToGold]

Just tested out my modified design for your cross field cap and was not able to detect any noticeable change in capacitance.

Guess I need to do it exactly as you did where the dielectric is directly between the two plates to get any noticeable results.

Will try this as soon as I can.

[Armagdn03]

Just tested out my modified design for your cross field cap and was not able to detect any noticeable change in capacitance.

Guess I need to do it exactly as you did where the dielectric is directly between the two plates to get any noticeable results.

Will try this as soon as I can.

Hey, I really liked your idea of using a design similar to the switching tube I showed in the other thread, pity it did not work out. I am not sure what size PVC tube you used, but a lot of those PVC pipes are rated to around 330PSI and have pretty thick walls. The blank printed circuit boards I first used had a thin rutile dielectric which had a dielectric constant of around 2-4 I believe.

Think about this The maximum capacitance capacitance for this cell is a function of:

*Plate surface area,
*dielectric thickness x2 (because each capacitor plate has a layer of dielectric)
*The water will have little effect on distance between the plates when there is no conduction through it.

If the thickness of your dielectric is large, and your plate area not to incredibly big, then you will have very little maximum capacitance, and to boot, very little change in capacitance.

Causing the water to conduct changes the apparent distance between the plates (dielectric constant K), your total distance between the plates is equal to:

Dielectric (1) + Dielectric (2) + change in distance due to water.

If the "change in distance from water" or the "dielectric constant of water" change does not constitute a large change in your formula, your capacitance will show little change also.

For example:



Say your PVC pipe wall thickness = 5mm (this will double in value in the equation.)
Say your Dielectric constant = 1
Say your plate area = 100mm squared

your capacitance = .085 pf

now say you change your distance by causing teh water dielectric to conduct, say we make the distance between the plates increase from 10mm (2x dielectric thickness) to 30mm for ease of calculation

New capacitance = 0.0295 pf
Change in capacitance = .0555 pf
ratio of old capacitance to new = 2.81


Now lets change some parameters

lets change the wall thickness of the dielectric to 2mm

our new capacitance = 0.221pf

Now we let our water conduct and change the distance again to 30,

with water conducting = .0295 pf
Change in capacitance = 0.1915 pf
Ratio of old capacitance to new = 7.49!!!

So in instance 1 we have a change in capacitance of 0.0555pf
In instance two we have a change in capacitance of .01915pf

This is a 3.45 fold difference in capacity change by altering the dielectric thickness of walls. This also represents a ratio of change in capacitance equal to 7.49 with the thinner dielectric (as opposed to 2.81 for the thicker dielectric)

[SilverToGold]

Thanks for this info.

The tube was rather thin, 3/8 inch diameter. Just a quick setup to see what I could find out.

So when power is given to the cell (current is on through the electrolyte), the capacitance decreases.

One concern I have about the results of your analysis is that it seems to really limit our upper voltage of this system.

If the voltage is so limited, a working system will not work.

I did a through analysis of these systems and from what I found, the max and min voltage these systems must be able to withstand is about the initial voltage * ratio. So if your system is operating at 10kv and your ratio of max to min cap is 10. You're system must be able to handle near 100kv spikes! If not, you will lose charges and your system will cease to function.

Perhaps the answer is using a very high strength dielectric like Barium Titanate. It's k is from 100 to 1250!

[Armagdn03]

Thanks for this info.

The tube was rather thin, 3/8 inch diameter. Just a quick setup to see what I could find out.

So when power is given to the cell (current is on through the electrolyte), the capacitance decreases.

One concern I have about the results of your analysis is that it seems to really limit our upper voltage of this system.

If the voltage is so limited, a working system will not work.

I did a through analysis of these systems and from what I found, the max and min voltage these systems must be able to withstand is about the initial voltage * ratio. So if your system is operating at 10kv and your ratio of max to min cap is 10. You're system must be able to handle near 100kv spikes! If not, you will lose charges and your system will cease to function.

Perhaps the answer is using a very high strength dielectric like Barium Titanate. It's k is from 100 to 1250!

My analysis only showed the effect of increasing or decreasing the thickness of the dielectric which cannot change its constant (the PVC pipe in this case, the glass in the case of the Hidink switching tube). This affects the ratio of max to min capacitance, and the overall capacitance of the system, two critical parameters. My analysis does not limit the upper voltages, your material and design capability do!

It is definitely possible to add many cells in series (a "battery" if you will)
and up the capacitance of the system, so that you may lower the voltage.

Also, the initial voltage times the ratio is correct. But this is an unloaded condition, if there is nowhere for charge to be shuttled, it will rise to this maximum value. If there is a heavy load, there will be nowhere near the max voltage. Takes a bit of calculus to figure out what the instantaneous voltage is at any given moment based on the impedance of the load (time constant)

[SilverToGold]

I really need to experiment to see what can be done with this device but thank you very much for showing it to us.

You are correct about the voltage spike. Where I disagree with you is in the use of a low impedance load. Using a heavy load might severely limit the max power per cycle. If the voltage is not able to build up as high as possible, the energy delivered to the load is greatly reduced. The power being the square of the voltage across the cap. This is one reason why I say go for a high impedance load, it will give you more energy delivered per cycle. Also the higher the load, the more power it will absorb in a close current loop.

My analysis only showed the effect of increasing or decreasing the thickness of the dielectric which cannot change its constant (the PVC pipe in this case, the glass in the case of the Hidink switching tube). This affects the ratio of max to min capacitance, and the overall capacitance of the system, two critical parameters. My analysis does not limit the upper voltages, your material and design capability do!

It is definitely possible to add many cells in series (a "battery" if you will)
and up the capacitance of the system, so that you may lower the voltage.

Also, the initial voltage times the ratio is correct. But this is an unloaded condition, if there is nowhere for charge to be shuttled, it will rise to this maximum value. If there is a heavy load, there will be nowhere near the max voltage. Takes a bit of calculus to figure out what the instantaneous voltage is at any given moment based on the impedance of the load (time constant)

[Armagdn03]

I really need to experiment to see what can be done with this device but thank you very much for showing it to us.

You are correct about the voltage spike. Where I disagree with you is in the use of a low impedance load. Using a heavy load might severely limit the max power per cycle. If the voltage is not able to build up as high as possible, the energy delivered to the load is greatly reduced. The power being the square of the voltage across the cap. This is one reason why I say go for a high impedance load, it will give you more energy delivered per cycle. Also the higher the load, the more power it will absorb in a close current loop.

I think we are referencing the Charge Conserving Capacitive Spring here, so i will adress this on that page

[boguslaw]

Ok,I will give you my old idea, never posted though. I believe that could work.

Take two wires and wind Tesla bifilar (whatever shape you wish : flat of conical or normal) but when you are joining the end of first wire with the start of second wire - do it via spark gap or kind of capacitor able to recover after dielectric failure or transil diode for low voltage or any nice device changing characterictic of such coil-capacitor. Other version - place such spark gap between layers of bifilar - between ends of sub-coils.

Of course I've never tested it - it require much more knowledge and especially costly lab or experience to measure distributed capacitance or parasitic inductance. Version two is much simpler - it changes inductance by lowering it two time I guess but still the shorted coil may have influence.
I think it could be very valuable experience for someone having tools to measure how inductance and especially capacitance of such coils change when spark gap is conducting. That's why I named it "parametric excitation coil" - it starts as a capacitor and changes into bifilar coil for higher voltage.
Once someone post valuable experimental data there is plenty of possibilities of using it.
Consider my idea as a gift for humanity, but which require additional labour.

[boguslaw]

I have no program to draw it nicely , please bear with me and help.

[Armagdn03]

Very cool idea, let me digest the concept for a bit

[MonsieurM]

this maybe of interest here:

http://www.energeticforum.com/145953-post70.html

Process for Altering the Energy Content of Dipolar Substances

James Y. JOHNSON

Abstract -- Changes in the energy content of dipolar substances are produced by exposure to a concentrated electromagnetic field having one or more frequencies corresponding to wavelengths between 3 mm. and 6 metres approximately and equal to characteristic periods of the substances treated. The process applies to naturally dipolar substances and to those in which dipoles can be induced by a field. The characteristic periods of the substances are of three kinds depending respectively on (1) the relaxation time of the dipoles when orientated by the field, (2) the natural oscillation-period of the dipoles, (3) the term-difference frequencies of the atoms...
....They may comprise several different frequencies and constant electrostatic fields may be superimposed on them (fractal frequencies)

James Y Johnson -- Dipolar resonance -- Anomalous dispersion bands

[SilverToGold]

Hi Armagdn03.

I build your cross field capacitor as you described and was not able get any variation in capacitance with a current running through the electrolyte.

I used 2 pieces of acrylic (1/8 inch thick) separated by 1/4 inch filled with the salt water electrolyte. 2 foils of Aluminum was placed on either side of the outside of the acrylic to serve as the plates. The acrylics are about 8" square.

I got a capacitance of about 145 pF regardless if any current ran through the salt water or not.

Lots of bubbles were seen when the current was on.

For me, this just didn't work. Not sure why since you seemed to have gotten some positive results from this.

What type of capacitance variations did you get with your cell?

[Armagdn03]

Hi Armagdn03.

I build your cross field capacitor as you described and was not able get any variation in capacitance with a current running through the electrolyte.

I used 2 pieces of acrylic (1/8 inch thick) separated by 1/4 inch filled with the salt water electrolyte. 2 foils of Aluminum was placed on either side of the outside of the acrylic to serve as the plates. The acrylics are about 8" square.

I got a capacitance of about 145 pF regardless if any current ran through the salt water or not.

Lots of bubbles were seen when the current was on.

For me, this just didn't work. Not sure why since you seemed to have gotten some positive results from this.

What type of capacitance variations did you get with your cell?

Hmmmm, that is odd! I am building a larger on at the moment, using acrylic and sheet metal also, But I have not had any measurements of the capacity yet.

The original one that I made the observation on was made of single sided copper clad PCB.

Here is the video...

YouTube - ‪MOV03700‬‏

it went from around 22.8 uf to less than 5 uf

I wonder if it has to do with rutile vs acrylic, well find out....

[SilverToGold]

Well, let us know what happens with your new setup. If you get some good results, I'll make an attempt to replicate it again.

I did measure the resistance of the electrolyte and it was about 200 ohms. Perhaps that also has something to do with it?

To be fair, I didn't do an exact replication since I didn't use the one sided copper clad boards you did, just used what I had laying around.

If you make a video again, please make one showing the change in capacitance with the current running vs it being off.

Hmmmm, that is odd! I am building a larger on at the moment, using acrylic and sheet metal also, But I have not had any measurements of the capacity yet.

The original one that I made the observation on was made of single sided copper clad PCB.

Here is the video...

YouTube - ‪MOV03700‬‏

it went from around 22.8 uf to less than 5 uf

I wonder if it has to do with rutile vs acrylic, well find out....