Idea's for Capacitors

[weegee]

Capacitor help needed

Hi people

after doing my usual on 'an auction site', i have ended up with 5 or 6 boxes (1.5' x 1.5' x 2' ) of capacitors all shapes and sizes, i bought in bulk because it was only a few quid more for these boxes full, than it was for the 30 or 40 caps i needed for my last project. I recon that i must have at least a few hundred thousand in total

Anyway, does anyone have any ideas for projects that involve lots of capacitors. something fun, and reasonably simple.

1) So far i have decided to make up a 2 or 3 Farad stiffining capacitor for my car audio by paralelling lots of my bigger caps, and adding a voltage display.

2) some kind of coil gun (it just has to be done)

Any other suggestions??

Other things i have in the kitty are boxes of resistors (every value imaginable) various PICs, a box of various logic chips, a few 555's, and various other random bits. so if you can think of anything i could make with this lot, please let me know, in the meantime im off to start building a big cap for my car audio.

Thanks

Weegee

 

[weegee]

almost 50,000 members and not a single reply, surely someone has some ideas for projects that use loads of capacitors??

Thanks

Weegee

 

[poopeater]

almost 50,000 members and not a single reply, surely someone has some ideas for projects that use loads of capacitors??

Thanks

Weegee

How about a bonfire?

 

[weegee]

How about a bonfire?

That could work, but i was kinda hoping for something a bit more fun than creating a mile high poision gas cloud.

 

[JimB]

Sort them out and sell them.

JimB

 

[concrete_hed]

Charge them up and then lick them

 

[weegee]

thanks jim, i think thats what i'll do.

at least it will stop the stupid comments from people with no creativity

caps anyone?

 

[Optikon]

The usual thing is for some kind of project that benefits from a couple of farad capacitor. Unfortunately, you won't ever be able to make a good Farad capacitor out of these. The sheer number of the types you will have to put together will require too much physical space and the ESR & ESL of your super cap will be lousy. That severly limits the applications.

My suggestion is, sort out & keep the good ones. Throw out or re-sell the rest.

Good ones / worth keeping around might be:

1) Poly-anything are useful
2) High voltage electrolytics
3) Low ESR eletrolytics / tantalums.
4) high voltage ceramic types.
5) NP0 ceramic types.
6) Exotic types like glass / ruby.

I dont know what all you have so that's a list of ones I would consider keeping around to use for projects.

 

[weegee]

most of them are big poly's, all good gear, all bagged and tagged, its the spares from a manufacturing plant, they empty out after each project. I'll take a few piccies of whats in the boxes, I would love to make a few different bits for my car and make the home-made power cap a part of my boot install.

Can you recommend a website that is searchable with part numbers, as id like to catalogue what i have - i know what most of the styles are but i wouldnt know what to look for as a ruby or glass style, but there are some weird and wonderful things in there. Thanks for your help.

Graham

 

[mrbluedd]

Hi every body. I'm a newcomer.

 

[dknguyen]

Hi every body. I'm a newcomer.

Welcome...you can create your own posts using the "New Thread" Button at the top of the forum.

 

[theinfamousbob]

A coil gun is fun...

@ my school (after school that is) we tore a bunch of old one-time-use cameras apart (probably 50 or 60) and i soldered them to a couple rails to make a cap bank...

One of the kids took it home and apart from one exploding (my bad haha) it fired...his dog accidently hit the trigger (he's not the brightest of kids) and it put a screw into his neighbor's car tire.

There are about 20 330v 120uf caps on it...planning on adding another 20 to 30 next week.

Teehee.

 

[StopGo]

Or a Marx generator, if you like big sparks