harnessing lightning, or not
in [Design]
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From: Winfield Hill on 12 Jun 2010 10:16 My Maxwell capacitors hard at work energy from harnessing lightning, see my post with photo, at the CR4 forum. http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/55751/Lightning-Arrestor#comment579837 -- Thanks, - Win
From: John Larkin on 12 Jun 2010 11:14 On 12 Jun 2010 07:16:54 -0700, Winfield Hill <Winfield_member(a)newsguy.com> wrote: >My Maxwell capacitors hard at work energy from harnessing lightning, see my post >with photo, at the CR4 forum. > >http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/55751/Lightning-Arrestor#comment579837 You rate 3 "good" answers out of 14. That site has very high standards! Why not use the lightning to heat water? The impedance match is potentially better, and it's easy to store hot water. We could throw a neighborhood hot-tub party after every strike, every 40 years or so. We don't get lightning here. I kind of miss it. John
From: Winfield Hill on 12 Jun 2010 11:33 John Larkin wrote... > > Winfield Hill wrote: > >> My Maxwell capacitors hard at work energy from harnessing lightning, >> see my post with photo, at the CR4 forum. >> http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/55751/Lightning-Arrestor#comment579837 > > You rate 3 "good" answers out of 14. That site has very high > standards! Yes indeed! My lightning answer, complete with photo and calculations, is not yet a "good answer" because it didn't get enough votes. Hmm, it did get one vote, was that from you John? Thanks! > Why not use the lightning to heat water? The impedance match is > potentially better, and it's easy to store hot water. We could > throw a neighborhood hot-tub party after every strike, every > 40 years or so. Aren't there serious problems with developing a high electric field in water? I mean, above about 1V it wants to break apart into H2 and O. And what about the electrode double layers? I dunno, it'd need to be a tall 1MV / 100kA = 10-ohm resistor with water cooling, or something. But if rated at a puny 1MV, it wouldn't warm up much water, with only 1MJ of energy. Sigh. > We don't get lightning here. I kind of miss it. Yes. -- Thanks, - Win
From: BlindBaby on 12 Jun 2010 11:45 On 12 Jun 2010 08:33:45 -0700, Winfield Hill <Winfield_member(a)newsguy.com> wrote: >John Larkin wrote... >> >> Winfield Hill wrote: >> >>> My Maxwell capacitors hard at work energy from harnessing lightning, >>> see my post with photo, at the CR4 forum. >>> http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/55751/Lightning-Arrestor#comment579837 >> >> You rate 3 "good" answers out of 14. That site has very high >> standards! > > Yes indeed! My lightning answer, complete with photo and > calculations, is not yet a "good answer" because it didn't > get enough votes. Hmm, it did get one vote, was that from > you John? Thanks! > >> Why not use the lightning to heat water? The impedance match is >> potentially better, and it's easy to store hot water. We could >> throw a neighborhood hot-tub party after every strike, every >> 40 years or so. > > Aren't there serious problems with developing a high electric > field in water? I mean, above about 1V it wants to break apart > into H2 and O. And what about the electrode double layers? > > I dunno, it'd need to be a tall 1MV / 100kA = 10-ohm resistor > with water cooling, or something. But if rated at a puny 1MV, > it wouldn't warm up much water, with only 1MJ of energy. Sigh. > >> We don't get lightning here. I kind of miss it. > > Yes. If it can make it from way up there all the way down to way down here, it can certainly make it across any dielectric inside any cap, so you guys are poking holes in the insulator layers to beat the band, in your caps.. A cap to store SOME lightning strike energy would be about a 300' x 300' (or more) insulator plate of Delrin or Teflon, or an even thinner plate of GLASS. The storage plate would have to be completely encapsulated. One ends up with a large, flat form factor Leyden jar.
From: Cydrome Leader on 12 Jun 2010 12:25
Winfield Hill <Winfield_member(a)newsguy.com> wrote: > My Maxwell capacitors hard at work energy from harnessing lightning, see my post > with photo, at the CR4 forum. > > http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/55751/Lightning-Arrestor#comment579837 lightning sounds like a good way to destroy some otherwise really expensive and fun to play with capacitors. Plus, if you think you can get those made for only $5000 each, you're in for a surprise. Anyways, go for the quarter shrinker, it's lots of fun. I'd try to of your caps in series, center tap grounded. be very wary of hysteresis when shorting out those caps too. the residual energy stored in them is quite unsafe and "builds" rather quickly. I use multiple pieces of solid 12 guage wire across my energy storage caps, just to make sure. There's really no room for mistakes with such monsters. Even if you're a cowboy and don't care about safety, consider the next person that touches them by accident after cleaning up your mess. Lastly, the 50uS lightning strike number is pretty meaningless, as that won't be the timing if you're trying to charge hundreds of thousands of uF of capacitor before they fail and short out. |