Who's Got What??(capacitors)

[ZIGGY_DAN]

Hello, i would like to know what the biggest high voltage capacitor anyone has seen, or who owns the biggest high voltage capacitor and what they use them for?

Just a general thought.

Thanks for any replies

 

[Papabravo]

For power supplies I have used 31,000 uFd @ 50VDC and 150,000 uFd @ 10VDC

 

[ZIGGY_DAN]

Thats a fair amount of power 31000uF @ 50VDC is 38.75 Joules, not bad.

 

[Papabravo]

This was for a two level supply to run a pair of 3.3A per phase unipolar stepper motors.

 

[ZIGGY_DAN]

those steppers sound pretty nice too!

 

[hjames]

I've got a 3.6kF 2.5V super cap, but it's only useful for welding bits of wire together... (At that capacitance, any voltage is dangerous)

 

[ZIGGY_DAN]

3.6KF is very large, i have 2 x 50F 2.3V capacitors myself, they were a bargain at £2.99 each. 3.6KF @2.5V is 11250 Joules (if my calculations are correct!?)

Pretty sweet

 

[hjames]

yeah, the energy storage is about right. It's definitely humbling to feed a couple amps into a capacitor and watch the voltage climb - a couple mV/sec. Then realize that this thing has a time constant of about a second... At which point the thing got discharged(through a nice hefty resistor), and was stuck in the parts bin with it's shorting wire in place.

 

[ZIGGY_DAN]

The two 50F capacitors that i have hold far less than yours but if shorted across some hefty wire or a screwdriver the wire or screwdriver will heat up nicely

have you got any high voltage high capacitance??

i have made a coilgun recently and thought of this thread for inspiration as too what capacitors can be sourced.

currently i am using 2 capacitors in parallel giving 2000uF @ 200V, its 40Joules but it will shoot a rather large nail right through an (empty) aluminium can at 4 or 5 feet

thanks for the replies

 

[spuffock]

I've got some 38uf 8kv. At present they keep doors open nicely!

 

[ZIGGY_DAN]

Keep doors open!!?? outrageous, you should be charging them up and using them unsafely on something stupid, or at least using them for something cool...

doorhandle... capacitor... doorhandle... capacitor.........

can you see the connection that i am trying to make LOL(excuse the pun)

Thanks for the replies